The Music Of The Night
by theladyingrey42
Summary: He seeks atonement through music. She seeks solace in an unseen world behind the curtains of a stage. What they end up finding is each other. Written for JAustenLover and Durameter for FGB:Eclipse. AU / BxE.
1. The Music of the Night

This story was written for **JAustenLover **and **Durameter** for **The ****Fandom Gives Back: Eclipse**. I can't thank them enough for their generosity, both for donating to such a great cause, and for letting me share this with all of you. They've also been pretty damned patient waiting for me to finish this, if you ask me.

Nominally, this is an expansion of a one-shot I wrote during the Twi25 last year, but it ended up growing into something much larger than that. The finished story will be told in 13 chapters and approximately 50,000 words.

Everything Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer. Everything Phantom of the Opera belongs to Andrew Lloyd Weber, Charles Hart and Gaston Leroux. (While this is not in any real sense a cross-over fic, the importance of the latter will become clear in the next couple of chapters.)

Thanks to antiaol, bmango and hunterhunting for their help, commas and kind words.

And now, without further ado, I present to you … PhantomWard.

* * *

**Chapter 1: The Music Of The Night**

In 1918, Edward Masen wakes from a sleep of fire and ash, his eyes opening to stare up into a cold, golden gaze. For a moment, there is disorientation. Silence.

And then the world is a cacophony of sound. Voices. Darkness. With his hands over his ears, Edward finds himself in a crouch in a corner of a room he doesn't know, the floor tiles cracking beneath his feet as he shifts. The golden eyes are in front of him again, one voice ringing out just slightly louder than the others. After a few moments that feel like hours, Edward realizes that this voice, alone amongst the hundreds waging war inside his skull, matches the motion of the lips before him.

"Edward? Edward? My name is Carlisle Cullen. You're safe. You were dying, but now you're safe."

_Dying._

The word lifts something to the front of Edward's consciousness, and he scans his body for signs of injury. Finding nothing, he begins to breathe more easily, relaxing slightly, until the sound and sensation of his breath make him notice what he _doesn't_ feel.

His heart.

Shuddering, Edward sinks even deeper into his crouch, his hands still tight around his ears.

Finally, he finds words for the question pressing hotly against his lungs. "Am I dead?"

On some level, he wishes he was.

The loudest voice says, "No. Not exactly."

But another voice, one that hovers just above the fog of all the others, says, _Yes. For this is no real life. _

_I'm sorry. _

…

Edward's first year of unlife passes in a rush of blood and the search for blood. He finds an uneasy companionship with Carlisle, who he learns is his creator. Sometimes, Edward stares at the man and mulls over that word.

_Creator._

In another life, it meant a very different thing to him, and while Carlisle may resemble some sort of a god, he is not _Edward's_ God.

But then again, Edward never expects to see _his_ God again.

The two of them quickly depart the city of Edward's birth – the only place that he has ever really known – and they leave behind almost everything that Edward ever thought of as home. As the brick and stone give way to prairie and then woods, the chaos in Edward's head slowly lessens, and the ache that cannot be silenced at least becomes something he can bear.

They take up residence in a cabin far from anything that could tempt Edward's control. Together, they pass many nights in conversation about what it means to be what they are. About vampires. Carlisle explains the difficult truce he has made between his conscience and his desires, and about how animal blood, while unsatisfying, is enough to keep him strong.

Edward says little in response, the taste of grass and earth and thin, weak life leaving a bitter sensation on his tongue. Conversation, which once came so easily to him, is almost impossible now. He hears the words that come from Carlisle's mouth, but he also hears a different, conflicting point of view. The two voices overlap and dovetail, but sometimes they dramatically diverge. In moments of confusion, Edward sometimes answers the wrong one, and he must run far into the surrounding woods to find any sort of peace inside his head.

Alone beneath a canopy of pine and sky, he finds some solace in silence. Swallowing down watery, earthy blood, he buries corpses and exhumes memories that are almost as thin as the liquid he forces down his throat. Carlisle has told him that to hold on to his human memories – and, by turn, his humanity – he should access them as much as possible in this first wild and thirsty year. But it is difficult.

Over and over, he recalls images of a father he watched slip into death and of a mother that, through the fog of fever and fire, he didn't. He tries to remember what it felt like to be home, but the essence of the memory escapes him, time and time again.

One night, he returns from his lonely wandering to his and Carlisle's cabin full of a new set of scents, a strange amalgam of pine and spruce and steel. Carlisle is nowhere to be found, but there is a warmth to a place that Edward is not accustomed to, and he follows the glowing currents of air to the living room to find it occupied.

Not by some_one._ But by some_thing._

And by so, so, so many memories.

The sight of the instrument and of the bench set in front of a row of black and white keys opens something strange inside of him, a coolness easing the burn he has suffered since the moment he awoke to this unlife. He feels the phantom of a pulse in the center of his chest, where he used to have a heart, and suddenly there is a picture in his mind.

Inside it, he is a boy. A child, really. A woman with red hair and green eyes sits by his side, and together they move their hands with abandon over keys, creating something beautiful as sound and careless melody blend with laughter and with … love.

The memory of love is one that has eluded Edward in these long, bloodthirsty weeks, and he almost feels his knees give out beneath him, the stone of his new body wanting to melt to flesh and bone beneath the weight of emotions that are too powerful for him to carry alone. Staggering, he makes his way toward the piano and sits too heavily, the hardwood flexing beneath his thighs.

The first note fills the room and his empty chest, but it is accompanied by a crack and the smell of fresh ivory as it is exposed to the air. The second is equally satisfying but more sour, the end distorted by a piece of wire stretching and then snapping. The third hears the breaking of a hammer and the obliteration of a key, and Edward is already relearning all over again that vampires cannot cry by the time his hands move automatically for a chord that he _remembers_ his mother teaching him.

As the three keys depress at once, the entire front of the piano collapses, a host of wires surrendering en masse to the call of non-being, steel and wood all giving. With a dry sob, Edward looks at the destruction his monstrous hands have wrought through the blur of dry, unsatisfying sobs, his fist coming down on the top of the piano as he abruptly stands.

He flees back into the woods, leaving behind him the shattered ruins of the piano, and with it, the broken shards of his lost memory.

Of his love.

And of his humanity.

…

Edward sits in silence in the parlor of his and Carlisle's new home. Slowly, over the course of three difficult, trying years, he has come to exercise control over himself. The thirst which once consumed him and the voices which nearly drove him mad are all more manageable now, the torment of his throat and of his mind both fading. While he still prefers to spend most of his time in solitude, he has come to recognize a third player in the delicate balance of needs.

In deference to his heart, his throat and his mind have both needed to be tamed.

Time has given him perspective on his relationship with the vampire that created him, and Edward is now at a loss for what he would do without Carlisle's friendship. While he still does not understand all of his companion's compunctions, he knows that the loneliness that lives deep within his heart would fester were it not for Carlisle and for the brushes with humans that they now have in their life on the edge of town.

And so, for the sake of that friendship, he forsakes the blood of humans and tolerates the voices he can never completely silence. He gives up and gives in, and finds that a half-life is better than no life at all, and that the sacrifice of everything he was, and of so much of what, as a vampire, he _could_ be, is acceptable, if not necessarily comfortable.

His ruminations are brought to a sudden end with the sound of voices approaching the house, and Edward instantly abandons his book and falls into a defensive posture near the door. With some concentration, he realizes that one of the silent voices is Carlisle's, but the tenor of the other, unknown mind is so unsettling that he cannot let his guard down completely.

_Kill me … Die … Baby … Why?_

There is wordless agony in and amongst the disconnected words, and Edward's own abdomen coils in reflex.

He recognizes this agony.

With the memory of flames licking hotly at his heels, he rushes forth from the house to meet Carlisle and a woman whose body is utterly broken. From multiple wounds along her neck and ankles and wrists, she is seeping blood, and there is a taste, too, of venom in the air.

_Jumped. Couldn't let her die. Not her._

Carlisle's physical voice is rendered useless by worry, but Edward takes the disjointed thoughts and assembles them in his head. There are memories there, none of which Edward has ever seen in full before, although at times he is certain he has caught passing glances. A girl. A broken leg. Warm thoughts and a feeling of possessiveness.

And love.

Already, there is love.

_Mate. _My_ mate. Esme._

"Carlisle." Edward's voice is choked and flat. He has been told about the idea of vampires and their mates, and in flashes of memory, Edward has heard that word pass in a ghostly wisp through Carlisle's thoughts.

There is another rush of panic through them both as the woman's body shivers and wracks, the air split by a piercing scream, and Carlisle is also a wreck.

_Let her survive. Let her forgive me. Let her want this life._

_Please. Please. Let her want me._

Prayers are no less potent when they bypass frozen lips, and Edward realizes that his friend is suffering with every wracking sob and shudder coming from this woman. From Esme. From Carlisle's _mate_.

Sucking down the bittern knowledge that, even when seen through the fog of fire, Carlisle was not nearly so destroyed during _his_ transformation, Edward springs into action, moving ahead to open the door to their home and preparing an unused, unnecessary bed. Carlisle's gratitude, while palpable, is only offered silently and without words as he sinks down onto the mattress, Esme's shattered body still held tightly in his arms.

Certain that they are alright and that there is nothing more that he can do, Edward retreats, feeling for the first time that he is unneeded and unwelcome in his own home. For a few hours, he sits in silent support, until the audible and inaudible torrents of Esme's pain become to much for him.

Out in the cool night air, he is alone again.

Uncertain what he is seeking or fleeing, Edward runs. For hundreds and hundreds of miles, he runs.

But the festering feeling of his own obsolescence still chases him.

…

A year after Esme's scarlet eyes snap open, Edward finds it hard to believe that he ever had a difficult time remembering the concept of love.

Or that he had never, in those three long years before her arrival, considered _physical_ love.

The woods have become more of a home to him than the secluded cottage that the three of them now ostensibly share. Edward winds up in the forest often, seeking escape from the things that his two companions now share, and yet which he feels quite certain that he will never, ever be party to.

Even as he nears the property line, thoughts of all-consuming, passionate love overwhelm him, and in the thoughts he cannot push out, there is a new kind of cacophony. He is bombarded with images of skin and sensations of wet sliding, with open mouths and depraved combinations of lips and hands and sex.

At the unwelcome reaction of his own body, Edward turns, his form soon ensconced again inside the crook of an aging tree. The sounds of love and love-making and _mating_ are out of range, but there is no way to push the images from his mind. He tries, though. In his head, he recites poems and performs the most complex calculations he can manage, but still the pressures inside his body persist until his own need becomes yet another voice he cannot push away.

With reluctance, he takes a hand to unsatisfied flesh, indulging in a necessary but unsavory orgasm, venom spilling uselessly to the forest floor. With the physical act of release, he finds his mind is once more clear.

But still, he does not dare return.

On so many levels, there is already no home for him to go to.

…

For hours, Edward stares at the painting. It is old, he knows. Older than himself, and already, nine years into his unlife, he feels _ancient_.

Over the past few years since Esme's transformation, he and the two of them have reached something of an understanding. More than once, he has offered them his absence and their privacy, but each time, they have declined. Slowly, he has come to understand that, while not exactly necessary to their union, he is not entirely unwelcome either.

And so he has continued to make a home with them.

After all, he has nowhere else to go.

This new house that they are settling into is larger than the last few have been, and Carlisle has sent for more of his things with which to fill the space. The most fascinating of them all, for Edward, is the painting.

In it, he recognizes the hard lines of bodies made of stone but hidden beneath silk and brocade. Vampires, all of them, he is sure. As if their postures and complexions were not enough, Edward can tell what they are from the sight of their glowing, crimson eyes. They look regal, he thinks. Commanding. On the cusp of life instead of hidden amongst its shadows.

All of them, that is, except one.

In the back of the scene, Edward recognizes a head of dirty blond hair and a glimmer of gold. Even in the picture, there is a haughtiness to Carlisle's countenance, and a distance that he keeps from everyone around him. Clenching his fists, Edward wonders what it must have been like to choose a life of denial – to live forever in a shadow of humanity in the face of so much glorious and unabashed immortality.

Inside himself, Edward feels a coiling. A strength that he has put such pain to moderating. A chorus of unchecked voices that he has bent his will to ignoring.

And he wonders what it would be like to set all of that free. To become a monster and a god.

_To become me. _

The thought gives him pause, but he lets it roll around in his mouth for a while. The idea that he could be something other than the shell of a not-quite-man he has become is tempting, and the painting just reminds him that there are others who do not deny temptation and who do not deny themselves.

Edward has become so very, very tired of sacrifice.

Silent voices and the quiet opening and closing of doors alerts Edward to the fact that he is no longer alone with his musings, and he takes the few moments before Carlisle joins him to check his thoughts and to regather his wits and his restraint around him.

Carlisle's footsteps move up the stairs , and Edward feels the rush of air as his only friend enters the room and joins him.

_Troubled, Edward? _Carlisle thinks. Through Carlisle's eyes, Edward takes in a shifting vision of the room, until finally the sight matches that of his own eyes._ Ah, I see. The Volturi._

Carlisle has spoken to Edward before about his time in Italy with that oldest and most powerful coven of vampires, but it is only since this painting arrived that Edward has begun to regard Carlisle's memories with something like envy.

_You remember them, Edward._

"Of course, I do."

_Pure decadence. Excess. But a tight respect for the law. Theirs is a fascinating society._

"Excess," Edward scoffs. The untapped strength in his joints tightens again.

_Yes, Edward. Excess. How else would you describe a complete disregard for human life?_

There is a high chuckle in Edward's ears, and too late he acknowledges to himself that it is his own. He cannot hold the irony back from his voice. "Oh, I don't know, Carlisle. Perhaps I might call it 'being a vampire.'"

"Edward." Carlisle's spoken voice is even enough, but his thoughts, Edward realizes, are chaos. Memories churn past his inner eyes. Memories of blood and thirst and denial. Of being the only one in a room to still be wanting when everyone else is sated.

It's a feeling that, in other, equally carnal ways, Edward knows far too well.

It's a feeling he is _tired_ of.

Another rush of air shifts through the room, and Esme appears at Carlisle's side. Edward can read in her thoughts that she was surprised to hear Carlisle's voice, since typically he prefers to speak to Edward through his thoughts alone. In silent support, she wraps herself around her mate's pliant, willing body, and already their thoughts are starting to turn.

To flesh.

To stone and wet and to loving in the dark.

And suddenly, the twin visions of the two of them, arm in arm, heart in heart, maddeningly and utterly in love, strikes Edward cold. He lets his gaze dart from their golden eyes to the ruby ones that seem to stare at him from the surface of the picture.

It is as if Edward is surrounded, and if he still needed air, it would alarm him that he is markedly unable to breathe. All around him, all he can see are the things he cannot have. The pieces of humanity that are forbidden to him and the joys of vampirism that he has never given into.

Love. Sex. Blood.

Freedom.

And suddenly, his half-life is nowhere near enough. His throat and his mind and his heart all speak as one when they tell him that it is. Not. Enough.

A new thirst opens up as he stares at bewildered golden eyes and at knowing, satiated scarlet ones.

For the first time, Edward _wants_.

And he will no longer be denied.

He will no longer deny everything that _could_ make this life enough.

His eyes widen, and he laughs.

"Carlisle, my friend," he says quietly. "Esme."

Edward pauses, looking around himself one more time.

And then, finally, he whispers, "Goodbye."

…

_Alive._

For the first time in ten long years, Edward Masen feels _alive_.

Pushing the chalk-white corpse away from him, he runs his tongue across his lips, feeling flushed and full and strong. The lush taste of the most potent blood still lingers on his teeth, and he is greedy, seeking, after so much time of self-denial, to catch it all.

There is only the tiniest twitch of remorse as he drags the lifeless shell of a man on whom he has fed over a ragged road of cobblestones. If anything, he deposits the body into the sewer with calculated efficiency, his mind already bent to the next hunt. His next feast.

_More_.

Edward always wants more.

Sticking to the shadows which no longer confine but which embolden him, Edward listens to the night, life coursing through him with a warm and spreading flush. He lets the blood that he has stolen strengthen him, making him run faster and jump farther, taking to the rooftops of buildings for no reason beyond the simple joy of doing so.

And of being what he is now.

A monster.

A god.

Laughing, he spreads his arms to the sky and takes in the stars with blood-red eyes. Nights like this, high on the lust and on the kill, it is easy to convince himself that it is all worthwhile. That he does not miss his friend or the clarity in his mind when he practiced some level of restraint. That the loss of human life means nothing to him.

That he does not feel every single victim's pain.

_No. Please._

His thoughts are cut off by the silent voice inside his mind. There is a flash of panic and a jolt of pain. Another voice. Triumph. Sadistic exultation. The pleasure of a bone snapping and of hardened flesh meeting air and then an unwilling, straining thigh.

Edward descends from the rooftop and follows the shadows to the source of the voices. He takes in the scene and the impending murder and rape with detached and calculating eyes.

Falling into a crouch, for just one moment, he pauses. And then the strength in all his limbs is releasing, his hands closing around an arm, snapping it, and he revels in the power.

There is a certain sadistic … joy in it.

A pleasure, even.

A tiny itch appears in the back of his skull as he recognizes that one similarity between himself and his prey, but he shrugs it off nonchalantly, not choosing to hear his old friend's voice in his ear. Instead, he lets the blood and the call of blood sing through him, letting his prey's victim fall backward as surprised and dying hands release her. Edward is only cognizant enough of her frantic eyes and of the need for discretion to retreat a few steps back before he drains the man.

Back into the shadows.

Back into memories of pain.

_No. Please._

The same thoughts that called him to the scene echo through his head as he lets his teeth rest against warm and pulsing flesh. Edward savors the aroma of lust and life beneath that thin layer of skin and tries not to listen.

But there is only so much he can do.

As always, Edward experiences the kill from two different points of view. The strongest is his own, a delicious feeling of power and of flesh, rent and tearing. A taste of hot, rich blood across his tongue.

A scream.

Even as Edward is biting, sucking, feeding, _living_, he acutely feels the dying. The bite is in his own flesh. The stolen essence is his own, and even as he is filling, he experiences the sensation of being drained.

And for that moment – that one, slim instant – he can hear Carlisle's voice amongst the hundreds all fighting for position in his head.

_No respect for human life._

_Monster._

Edward drinks the last hot gulp of blood and then lets the corpse fall.

Supernaturally stable hands want to tremble. His throat _wants_ to gag.

Just like the taste of copper and salt, the scent of pain lingers like a fog.

There is a moment of darkness as he looks at himself and at what he has wrought. He never thought that he would fall so far. That he would become the silent evil that he hunts. That he would become the sort of man his only friend would refuse to speak to.

That he would reach the point of no longer being a man at all.

_Monster._

Darkness. Pain.

And then a trickle of steadily flowing light.

In a tidal wave of relief, warmth rushes over him.

Moving swiftly through crystalline vessels, blood infuses his every limb and finger and cell, and he can feel them all.

_Alive._

For the first time in so long, Edward Masen feels _alive_.

Pushing the chalk-white corpse away from him, he runs his tongue across his lips, feeling flushed and full and strong. The dark thoughts that always accompany the kill recede, leaving him with only the faintest twitch of remorse as he drags the lifeless shell of a man over a ragged road of cobblestones. If anything, he deposits the body into the sewer with calculated efficiency, his mind already bent to the next hunt. His next feast.

_More._

Edward always wants more.

But in the back of his mind, there is still that itch. With all his new-found strength, he denies it, but still, he knows.

He knows that the more he drinks, the more the borrowed memories of pain seem to linger.

And even he can see the slight shakiness to his gait as, once again, he stalks off into a bloody, monstrous night.

…

The corpse is barely drained before Edward is pushing it away from him, recoiling in horror, his eyes and ears and mind awash in pain. Agony. Fear. The voices join together now in an echoing call that washes out behind him in an ocean of blood and death, and all of it is dripping from his trembling hands.

Three years' worth of blood.

Three years' worth of murder and death.

And he wants more.

He wants it almost as much as he wants to die.

…

The skin of the throat against his teeth is warm, the blood so close.

But the screams are even closer.

As if they are pressed against his own burning, aching own throat, Edward can feel the pressure of razor-sharp teeth and the first prickling stings of venom on tight-wound nerves.

And it's too much.

Convulsing against the cries and the fear and the pain and the death, Edward doubles in on himself, releasing his prey to that lonely night and falling to his knees. A thousand voices scream out at him in memory until the blood itself is tainted with a suffering that lives inside him now. It courses through his veins and through his ears and through his crimson, murderous hands.

_Too much. _

The city streets fly by him in a blur. He does not even know where he is going, except that it is away from the voices.

So many voices.

There are voices of lovers and of lonely, angry people. As he runs, Edward hears passion and laughter and life, and none of it is meant for him. Their blood is not meant for him either, though, the very idea of it tainted now with pain.

For him, there is nothing.

He _is_ nothing.

Eventually, Edward finds himself again in the middle of a twisted, knotted wood, alone but for his memories, and the freshest among them are of murder and blood.

So much blood.

And he is thirsty.

Yet still, he runs.

A watery scent of life hits his nose, his black eyes narrowing, his feet stilling as he falls into a crouch. There is a defensive closing in his mind, a reaction against what he knows will sustain him, but which is now so inextricably entwined with visions of fear and pain. He tastes the adrenaline on his tongue, a heartbeat lush and wet just to his side.

He pounces.

Liquid flows through the arid desert of his throat, watering the parts of him that have grown desiccated and old. The anticipation of terror winds a sticky ribbon around his heart, but for once his thirst is slaked without fear, and he drops the frozen, lifeless body of the elk at his feet. The blood coursing through his limbs is unsatisfying.

But Carlisle was right.

It is enough to keep him strong.

…

For months, Edward pretends he doesn't know where he is going. In wandering circles, he closes in on the place, drawn there as if there is a magnet at its center.

Surprisingly, Carlisle's and Esme's scents are still all over the town, moving in glowing arcs through its streets. Edward had always assumed that they would have moved on by now, but as he approached the house they all once briefly shared, there can be no doubt. They are still there.

Everything inside of him is tense as he approaches, the very walls of the house thick with memories of his own foolish betrayal.

But then, there are sounds.

Images.

Voices.

Edward physically cringes away from the familiar bombardment. Flashes of ecstasy make his stone body harden, his mind fascinated and repulsed. But inside, the lonely center of his being is once again melting.

Love. Sex. Blood.

He is denied all of them.

Still.

He doesn't even pass close enough to the house for the mated, mating pair to hear him. He wonders idly, as he is turning, if when they finally emerge, they will catch his scent and know that he was here.

If they will remember him. If maybe, just maybe, they even miss him.

But it does not matter.

Not now.

Because in a flash, he is already gone.

…

In 1933, Edward Masen awakens from a sleep of cold, grey mourning. His eyes have been open for fifteen years, and they have drifted from crimson to gold and back, again and again. Most often, these days, they are black.

No more than a ghost, he wanders from the woods whose quiet company he keeps to cities where the constant onslaught of spoken and silent voices splits his mind. He stays there, amidst so many walls of misery and stone, for as long as he can at any given time, grateful that the ocean of thoughts and sound at least drowns out the voices from his memory.

That the grey of industrial skies is enough to blur a river of flowing red.

The hour is late as he finds his way into another town, the stink of poverty assailing him, along with that of dead, stale blood. He is so hungry in his body and so hopeless in his spirit that he does not know what to do with the heady scent, and when he finds a near-dead man, lying prone in the middle of the street, he is tempted.

He can count on his two murderous hands the number of times he has given into his lingering desires for human blood in the last few years, and each time has proven worse than the last, screams echoing inside his silent, aching heart for months.

But he is thirsty.

And the whole place stinks of death in any case.

The man scarcely stirs as Edward pulls his limp form behind the corner of a house. Edward lets the dull thump of the man's heart warm his coldest parts, but winces against the memories that are awakened, too. With his jaw and throat both open, his teeth scraping indelicately against skin, Edward hesitates, waiting for pain.

And when it comes, it is overwhelming.

Edward drops the man and disappears in a whirl of spinning dust, his heavy footfalls taking him anywhere except back.

He can never go back.

He is just wandering past the general store when suddenly, Edward feels his stone skin becoming warmed. The heat is so intense that it almost feels like life, and Edward flexes his fingers with the unfamiliarity of that sensation. Too late, he looks down at his hands, brilliant in their motions.

And then he looks up at the sun.

Horror and fear are a thick spike running hotly through Edward's already desperate throat as he is impelled into motion. Storefronts blur and then there is shadow, instinct leading him to the darkest places available, a relative silence guiding him away from curious eyes.

When his flesh finally feels cool again, the voices in his head receding as much as they can inside a town, he finally stops. The burst of panic has left him more drained than usual, a weakness settling heavily into his limbs as he looks around.

Leaning heavily against the closed doors through which he entered, Edward takes in a huge and darkened room, dusty floors that were once bright with polish. Staggered rows of plush seats. A stage.

And finally, terrifyingly, a set of ivory and ebony keys.

It is the first instrument of its kind that he has seen since the one he ruined all those lonely years ago, back before he knew his own strength, and he is surprised to find the memory of that failure so fresh. He can smell the broken ivory and the fresh steel of snapping strings.

And he can see his mother's hair.

The steps that take him to the bench are silent and swift, and his unsteady breathing is calmed slightly when he manages to sit without incident, the wood failing to creak or to crack under his weight. Edward does not even dare to blink as he lifts a cold white hand to off-white keys, pressing down so subtly. So gently.

The warmth that moves through him at the resulting note is almost as powerful as that of the sun, and Edward exhales raggedly, unnecessarily, with the lifting of a weight that has hindered him for so long. A second soft, musical tone rings out, and then a third and a fourth. Stinging with venom, his eyes cloud and close as finally he dares to make a chord. And then another.

And before he knows it, lost in memories of his mother and of love and of home, Edward is _playing_. There are old songs and silly songs. Songs that haven't even been written, but which flow from his hands like water. Like blood.

And like blood, the music sustains him. Beneath the slowly rising notes, there is a silence he has never known, the thoughts and voices outside of the theatre slowly fading until it is just him and his memory.

It is enough.

So absorbed is he that he does not notice the day slipping away, or the opening of a door. Even the scent and sound of a living, beating heart does not rouse him from his revery and his sudden, surprising joy.

But the clapping does.

_Damn fine playing. _Damn_ fine._

The cover slams down over the keys with a dull clap, the bench scraping across the floor as Edward turns and stands.

Wide, surprised eyes look up at him. They feel like the first eyes to really _see_ him in years, and Edward is staggered by the sight of his own haggard visage in the man's mind's eye. To his own eyes, Edward appears hungry. Angry.

Monstrous.

A sudden shiver of fear rushes harshly down the man's spine, and Edward can sense his uncertainty and his sudden doubt.

_How did he get in here, anyway? I was sure I locked the place last night._

"I'm sorry," Edward says, responding to the unspoken question without fully thinking it through. It has been so long since he has spoken that his own voice shocks him, but still he soldiers on. "I did not mean to trespass. I'll be going now."

No sooner has Edward turned away from the man than a warm hand closes around his arm, a lush scent scorching his already burning lungs.

"Now, hold on just one minute, son."

Freezing his body and his breath, Edward turns thirsty, black eyes on the man. But then, in his mind, he sees a vision. A proposal.

A plan.

And the theatre rings with the improbable, near-forgotten sound of Edward's laughter.

…

The first time Edward plays in front of an audience, his mouth is a flood of venom, his mind a chaotic swell of voices and thoughts as he hovers, near-panicked in the wings.

_Poor boy looks nervous. He's so pale._

"You alright, son?"

Edward swallows a half dozen times and nods. It is a terrible plan. It must be. To be here, a monster among men is unthinkable, really.

But then again, so is the idea of living without the music that brought him such solace, rising up around him like the arms he has so long been denied, cradling him against thoughts in a blanket of sound.

He moves forward, his mind full of a myriad of images of his own pale face, cast in a strange glow by the hot intensity of the stage lights. There is a natural reaction of recoil, and Edward has to work hard to restrain a snarl, instinct pushing him to confirm his _other_ness to his prey.

Only they are not his prey. Not tonight.

The bench scrapes backward, Edward's body bending as he settles his hands so carefully on ivory keys.

The hall echoes with soft tones. Music.

And everything else – all the voices and memories and fears – all float away.

An unbearable lightness settles over Edward's being, with just the faintest of thoughts pushing through the warm edges of the music he is now surrounded in.

_Beautiful._

_Wonderful._

_It's beautiful._

Edward feels a stabbing pressure in his chest, and he knows that it is right where his heart would be if only his heart still beat. Playing on, he is surrounded by joy.

He marvels at the word. The feeling.

_Joy._

His music has brought people not pain. Not fear.

But _joy_.

Edward closes his eyes against the tears he cannot shed.

Stone shifts. A life changes.

And he knows.

Music is not only his salvation.

It is finally his chance to atone.

* * *

**A/N:** Chapters will post every other Thursday until my other WIP, Our Lives Unbound, is complete. Then every Thursday after that.

Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think?


	2. Think of Me

Everything Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer. Everything Phantom of the Opera belongs to Andrew Lloyd Weber, Charles Hart and Gaston Leroux.

Thanks to antiaol, bmango and hunterhunting for their help, commas and kind words.

Thanks also to JAustenLover and Durameter. Without them, this story would not exist.

* * *

**Chapter 2: Think of Me**

The first time Bella Swan tries out for her school's choir, she is eleven. She is still at a point in life where she expects success, and she does not entirely realize that her mother's expression is more of a grimace than a smile when she sings while doing her chores.

Standing beside the piano in her music teacher's classroom, Bella puts her entire heart into the audition song. Her voice is loud and strong, and she is confident that it is one her very best performances to date. Even before she has finished the audition, she can already picture how she will look up on that stage at the winter recital. She can see the look on all the other children's faces when she, the quiet, mousy Bella Swan is offered the big solo. She can taste what it will be like to be noticed.

To be beloved.

When the final roster is posted, Bella practically runs to the wall to look at it, her heart brimming with excitement and her lip held hard between her teeth as she splits her face with the wideness of her smile. Slowly, so slowly, the smile fades as her eyes lower and scan. Three times, she searches the list of names, until finally her quivering lip and the results of her blurry eyes cannot be denied.

Returning to her seat, she pretends it doesn't matter, and she is relieved to find that no one seems to have noticed her dejection. The thin veil of invisibility against which she has often rebelled is momentarily her friend, and she wraps herself in it as tightly as she can, clinging to it really.

At that particular moment, she doesn't want to be seen.

And she isn't. The rest of that year and the several that follow it, she lets that one of so many tiny rejections shape her into the kind of girl who hides behind her hair. She sits in the backs of classrooms and doodles and reads, talking only to a few close friends. At home, she listens to her mother's vivacious tales about taking life by the horns and nods and smiles and cleans.

She watches the world float by her. But more and more, as the years slip past, she realizes that the world is not watching her.

That no one is, really.

At age seventeen, Bella see her mother's eyes fill with love and wanderlust, and she decides that it would be better if she made herself scarcer still. She boards a plane in the desert to a place so very far away, and arrives in a dark, damp town, intending to make a new life in her father's silent house.

Her old habits are hard to shake though, and she shrinks from the attention her presence seems to garner. When people realize that she is less a shiny toy than she is a shy and quiet daughter, they leave her to herself, and before long, she is feeling even more invisible than before.

Everything continues in just that way for weeks, until one day she trips over her own feet and runs headlong into a wall. Rubbing absently at the bump appearing on her forehead, Bella lets her eyes drift over the fliers posted all over the bulletin board she collided with. And one, amongst them all, stands out.

Bella arrives in the auditorium with her heart in her throat and the flier clutched tightly in her hand. Ever since her rejection at the hands of a fifth grade choir teacher, Bella's voice has grown quieter and quieter, and these days, she rarely even sings while doing chores. But still, there is a certain something in the back of her mind, some image of herself, more confident and less hunched, dressed in something glittery. And standing on a stage.

When her name is called, Bella takes her place beside the piano, closing her eyes as the first few notes ring out. At her cue, she opens her mouth. Only, while it is her intention to sing her heart out, only the tiniest of whispers comes out.

And for the first time in years, people are looking at her.

And they are laughing.

Bella barely stops to grab her bag before she darts toward the exit, her hair down and her face hidden behind that all-consuming curtain of brown. She is almost at the double doors, so close to her escape, when a hand closes around her arm.

Startled, Bella squeaks out a wordless noise of protest, but then stops when her eyes meet another pair of eyes, warm and brown. And these eyes are not laughing.

Instead, they are inviting her in.

…

Forks High School's spring musical is the first one that Bella works backstage on, but it is far from her last. The girl who invited her backstage introduces herself as Angela Weber, and over the course of two months' worth of rehearsals, Angela shows Bella everything there is to know about managing a production. As part of a small band of shy, unassuming kids, Bella becomes at home with darkness and with being invisible for a _reason_. Clad all in black, she learns to wrestle with curtains and props, hefting sets and completely scene changes in the dark.

Her senior year of high school, she ends up becoming thick friends with her fellow tech crew members, and they pull off two small plays in the fall before the challenge of the big spring musical again rolls around. Bella watches the auditions for the musical from the wings, and for a moment, she lets fantasies of being on the stage wash over her again. They are idle thoughts, and ones that have no purpose.

However, when she hears that Mike Newton has been cast as the lead, those fantasies reemerge with even more tenacity. Bella has never had much interest in boys, and boys have never really noticed her. Mike has always been nice to her, though, and Bella finds something appealing about the shape of his mouth and the brightness of his eyes.

Moving deftly around set pieces, Bella again lets the idea of being out there on the stage drift idly over her mind. In the daydream, she is standing opposite Mike, the leading lady to his leading man. Only the obligatory kiss, when it comes, never ends, and they continue it in the stairwell and in his car and at the prom. It is just as she is flushing hotly from the idea of warm touches on her skin in places where no hands but hers have ever been that she trips, crashing unceremoniously into a ladder. Every eye in the theatre turns to look at her, but the only ones she sees are Mike's. For the first time ever, they are focused right on her, and for just that instant, she wonders if he can tell what she is thinking.

The hunger in his eyes tells her that maybe he can.

One day, as she is working out some knots in a particularly complicated bit of rigging, she hears heavy footfalls moving close to her in the dark. Her breath and heart both race, knowing that she is in a particularly secluded section of the catacombs that run beneath the stage. Readying herself to scream, she turns, but then she sees that it is Mike. All her defensiveness drops away, her cheeks hot, as he asks her how she is.

From that day on, Mike seems to find plenty of excuses to hunt her down after rehearsals, always meeting her in the secluded places where no one ever goes. In the dark.

The first time he touches her, Bella feels as if her skin is on fire, the pleasure of a hand on another hand setting her spinning. Soon enough, hands begin to wander, and then, finally, there is the heady meeting of lips on lips, a brush of tongue and the softness of another mouth breathing life into her own. It is Bella's first kiss, and for the entire week, it consumes her thoughts.

She is so distracted by it, in fact, that she does not notice that she is not the only girl that Mike is kissing, or that he only likes to kiss her in the dark. In the light of day, he becomes like everybody else. Unseeing.

And Bella, as always, is invisible.

On the last night of the musical's three week run, long after the play is done, Bella hangs around the darkened world backstage. Even as the hour grows late, she finds reason after reason to delay, skipping the after-party and sticking to the back passages beneath the stage where Mike has always found her when he has come looking for her before. And this time, he does not disappoint her.

There, in the dark world of props and costumes, Bella lets Mike take her clothes off, and she takes his off, too. With a joy she had never expected to find in the act of physical love, she gives him her body and her virginity, and he takes them both with gentle, kind touches. But even when she is at her most vulnerable, naked on a table, she is still cloaked in her invisibility, and Mike pushes into her without really seeing her.

She doesn't see him either when she doesn't come. Or when she refastens her shirt.

And as the lights come up, she knows that she won't see him any more.

…

All through college, Bella sinks deeper into a life lived well behind the scenes, watching the world as if it is just another show on another stage. She has lovers from time to time, but most of them are awkward boys that share her aversion to the spotlight, albeit for reasons of thier own. She never gives her heart away, and what's more, she never wants to.

Armed with a bachelor's degree in theatre production and stagecraft, Bella moves into a tiny apartment and a job building sets and working lights. She finds a home amongst the ropes and scaffolds, creating the illusion of life, and serving as a backdrop against which braver people act out all kinds of scenes.

And never does she ever become a part of them.

She has been working at the theatre for almost a year when she makes her first high-profile mistake. During an evening performance, Bella trips, sending an important set piece toppling, and it takes three people to right the thing, delaying the following scene for uncomfortable, unforgivable minutes. After the curtains have closed for the night, Bella finds herself sitting on a box beneath the stage with her head in her hands, waiting for the proverbial ax to fall.

When she is called into one of the big offices downstairs, she enters it the way she always does. Quietly. Tentatively. The director, Matthew, is sitting there, waiting. He ignores her at first, but eventually she clears her throat, and he looks up, bewildered, his grey eyes focusing on her as if he truly had not noticed her before.

By the time Bella exits Matthew's office, she is completely unsettled. There is the matter of having been so completely chastised, and Matthew left her with no room to doubt that she was lucky to still have her job. And then there is the other matter. The matter of his eyes and how they seemed to really _see_ her. The matter of his mouth and jaw and his messy, jet black hair.

That night, she lets those images move through her mind as she is lying in bed, and there is a blooming warmth inside her chest as she thinks of him.

Warmth grows into heat the next day, when Matthew's smile graces the parts of the theatre he rarely frequents, his eyes connecting with hers there in the dim. Neither makes any pretense at hiding the attraction, and they fall quickly into bed together. Bella thrills at the pleasure of frequent, late-night rendezvous, both in the alcoves behind the set and in her bed, and for the first time, she feels the strings she has held so tightly to finally loosening around her heart.

Everything is perfect, really, until one particular night, a few months into their affair. They have kept it secret at Matthew's insistence , and for the most part, she has swallowed his frequent explanations about how the revelation that he is sleeping with a subordinate would make him look.

It is the closing night after a performance, and she finds herself with her legs open at the edge of his desk. He fucks her steadily, insistently, pausing only when she scratches hard enough at his back to risk leaving marks. For once, the pressure rising steadily in her body begins to crest, and she calls out too loudly in her fervor, and he is shushing her.

She does not know why he is shushing her.

After he comes, they clean up quickly and she moves to embrace him, feeling like something is off, but he pretends that everything is fine. Together but separate, they make their way upstairs to the cast party, Matthew's eyes cast down and his hands fumbling nervously in the pockets of his slacks.

He pulls the door open, holding it for her. Bella steps through, just barely managing to clear the threshold before she is all but bowled over, a tall, attractive and vivacious woman moving past her, and then this woman is wrapping her arms around Matthew. Kissing him.

He kisses her back.

Wishing she could blend into the wall, Bella watches the way she always does, the edges of her heart shattering with every motion, until finally guilty eyes meet her mortified ones. There is apology in them. But there is also the end of an illusion she hadn't even thought to try to put her hand through, she was so, so certain it was real.

"Sweetheart?" Bella's chest aches just a little bit more when she realizes that the endearment is not meant for her. Matthew prods the woman one more time, pointing in Bella's direction insistently before she finally can be convinced to turn around. "Lisa, sweetheart, this is Bella. She's part of our tech crew. Bella, this is my fiancee, Lisa."

Bella's mouth is dry as she looks at the hand extended out toward her. Lisa's face is open. Hopeful. Unsuspecting, even, and Bella hates her for her obliviousness. She hates her for her smile. Something hot and angry moves up through her, and for a strange and powerful moment, Bella considers being someone else. Instead of the woman behind the scenes, she pictures being the one to tear down a wall. To expose the illusion.

But Matthew is motioning, his eyes pleading. When Bella hesitates again, his expression changes, and then he is not pleading.

He is threatening.

And all over again, Bella remembers what he always said.

He is her superior.

And inferior does not even begin to scrape depths of how small she feels.

With a small noise of misery, Bella, tucks her pride and her hopes away. She does not shake Lisa's hand, but she does not spit in it either. Instead, she forces a thin, tight-lipped smile and says, "It's nice to meet you."

And when she steps away, she truly does blend in with the walls.

…

As it turns out, that autumn is a terrible time to be looking for a job, but Bella is relentless. She finds her gumption when she corners Matthew the day after the cast party, informing him that if he does not help her find work somewhere else, she will expose him, to his producer and to his fiancee. He promises to do what he can, seeming shocked that she is really leaving both the theatre and his bed.

And it is that tiny shred of hope she sees in his eyes that finally makes her hate him. She cannot believe that he thought she would still be content to sleep with him after uncovering his deceit, and she _hates_ him for it.

Almost as much as she hates herself for not seeing the deception that was right before her eyes.

Finally, she locates a touring company looking for a tech who can move on short notice, and she speeds to the theatre to put her name in. When she discovers that the company is mounting a production of _The Phantom of the Opera_, Bella's enthusiasm doubles, delighted at the possibility of working such a high-profile, technically demanding show.

Threatening Matthew again, she gets him to pull a few strings, and Bella soon finds herself at the closed-down theatre where pre-production is already ongoing. At the interview, the producer mentions with great excitement that her references are excellent, and Bella snickers to herself.

She never intended to sleep her way into better positions.

But if she was going to get screwed anyway, then she figures she had might as well make the most of it all.

As she is leaving the producer's office, her signed contract gripped tightly in her hand, she happens to wander past a rehearsal already in progress. Bella knows better than to linger for too long, but for a moment she pauses, listening to the voices of the actors and actresses as they play out a climactic scene.

Slowly, she closes her eyes, letting herself drift on the whirl of notes, crescendoing higher and higher, until finally there is a long pause.

And then one voice.

One singular, perfect, heart-broken voice.

Bella's eyes snap open, trying to identify the source of the music that seems to have filled her entire body with warm sound and pure emotion. Only, when she looks up, it is clear that only one person could have made that sound.

One man.

And he is looking right at her.

In that moment, Bella feels something shifting beneath her feet, like some part of her recognizes a part of someone else. Like some part of her is really _seen_.

Unable to look away, she feels her gaze connect with that of the stranger, and for an infinite amount of time, she simply stares, lost in eyes the color of gold, set in a face carved of stone and pain. While the man appears to be young, there is something too about his countenance that seems as old as time, and all at once, Bella finds herself wanting to ask him about every single one of his years on this earth.

She wants to know him. She wants to be _known_.

And though she has spent her entire life in darkness and living far behind the surface of the world, Bella feels her foot begin to step forward, ready to bring her whole body into the light. Suddenly, she feels ready to step toward a stage.

At just that instant, though, the deep silence that had followed the final note of the song is broken, and motion erupts all around the theatre once more. Jostled by another performer, the man in whose gaze she had been lost is forced to look away, and Bella shivers with the feeling that she is adrift amidst the darkness again. Unseen.

With a palpable heaviness, Bella feels the curtains of the world fall back down around her. No matter how desperately she wills them upward, the golden eyes do not return to hers, and after a moment, Bella slowly drops her gaze to her feet. Fighting down the sting of disappointment that she knows so well, she turns. As she hurries toward the exit, the intense memory of connection shimmers like a mirage in the desert heat, and she allows herself to doubt what she had felt. To doubt that anything had really happened at all.

Emerging out onto the street, she tells herself over and over again that it was just her imagination – that the man only focused in on her because she made some sort of a noise, or because he was surprised to have an audience. She reminds herself that, for most people, being noticed is not a noteworthy event. She tells herself it was nothing. An accident.

But still, all week long, as she is sorting out the details around her change in jobs, she pauses often, getting lost in some intangible distance, staring at nothing and remembering _something_.

And every now and then, as she is packing to depart, she viscerally remembers the feeling of being seen.

After all, it is hard not to.

Especially when, for the first time ever, she is also intensely aware of the sensation of being watched.


	3. The Phantom of the Opera

Everything Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer. Everything Phantom of the Opera belongs to Andrew Lloyd Weber, Charles Hart and Gaston Leroux.

Thanks to antiaol, bmango and hunterhunting for their help, commas and kind words.

Thanks also to JAustenLover and Durameter. Without them, this story would not exist.

* * *

**Chapter 3: The Phantom of the Opera**

For seventy-five years, Edward Masen moves from town to town, performing in different venues under a variety of assumed names. But never his own.

Sometimes it is Cullen. Other times it is his mother's maiden name, and once or twice, he even uses Esme's, though that one strikes something just a bit too tender in his heart. In the late 1960s, he begins inventing names, realizing that, on some level, it doesn't really matter. He alone knows exactly who he is.

And no one else ever will.

Edward plays by himself most of the time, either at piano or occasionally, when it becomes more popular, the guitar. One day, he finds himself humming an old melody along with his careful strumming, his mind lost in memories of sitting quietly in his mother's lap, listening as she would sing to him. While the music dulls the voices in his head, he cannot help but notice a slow welling of affection from the people who are listening, and on a whim, he begins to sing.

He sings only old songs. They are songs from when he was a child, and nobody knows them, but still, they respond. He can feel that the voice he so rarely exercises stirs _something_. In the minds of his audience, he feels love and wonder, sadness and elation, and he feeds from all of it. The cold, stone center of his being shudders.

And for just one moment – one tiny instant in time – he feels _alive_ again.

At the end of the night, the manager of the bar is overwhelming in his praise, both mentally and verbally, and Edward smirks at the suggestion that, were he to learn some more modern songs, he could 'make a killing.'

He does not point out to the man that that is precisely what he is trying not to do.

He does take the man's advice, though. Over the years, Edward has followed advancements in the creation of musical recordings, and while he moves too frequently to amass too vast of a collection, he does keep a small library of his favorites. On the days when it is too sunny to play on street corners, Edward begins patronizing both libraries and music stores, looking for things that will evoke the sorts of emotions that he hopes will join his diet of unappetizing blood in helping to sustain him.

It is in this manner, in the late 1980s, that Edward stumbles upon the score for _The Phantom of the Opera_. Considering his affection for the novel, he does not expect it to compare, but still, he tries to keep an open mind.

In the end, though, it is his heart that is truly opened.

In one of the listening rooms in the library, he lets the songs move around him, something dark within the music calling to him. Without knowing what he is doing, he rewinds and presses play, again and again and again.

That night, in a trembling tenor, he plays _The Music of the Night_, and in so doing, shows the people who are listening just a little bit of who he really is.

And to see himself reflected back in their thoughts, tragic and beautiful and alone, rocks him to the core.

A week later, he finds himself in New York to see the play for himself. It is intensely uncomfortable to be so exposed, so vulnerable and so surrounded by voices._ So many voices._ As he waits for the performance to begin, he feels his agitation rising, his ears and his mind both feeling worked-over and raw. It is just as he is about to fall into an absolute panic, his fingernails raking across the impenetrable flesh of his brow, that finally the lights begin to dim. As it always does, the music of the overture begins to calm him, his hands returning to his lap, the roar of voices quieting.

And then it is just him and the music.

As the play progresses, Edward feels that same stirring again, somewhere deep within his being. In the character of the Phantom, he sees his own loathesome past and the choices that made a man into a monster. He sees the terrible longing for love, and then finally, irrevocably, the choice to let love go.

And he hopes that, were he to have that chance, he would do the same.

When the final melancholy notes of the play begin to drift gently through the theatre, Edward is the first to rise to his feet, applauding with as much abandon as he dares. He catches himself a moment later when the calming effect of the music leaves him and a rush of thoughts descends back down around his mind, the scent of human blood pounding so thickly in his ears. Before the first curtain call is even over, he is already back out on the street, moving through the shadows.

Reminding himself that the shadows are where he belongs.

…

For the next few years, Edward entertains fantasies about playing the Phantom on stage, even though he knows it to be impossible. Beyond his doubts about whether or not the illusion of his humanity could withstand so much scrutiny, he remembers well the rules that Carlisle spoke of back so many years ago. The role is much too high-profile. The risk too great.

But still. He dreams.

And on some level, although he would deny it were anyone to ask him, he begins to prepare.

It starts with a small, local production in a neighborhood theatre. Slipping in at the last possible moment, his entire rational mind insisting that it is a terrible idea, Edward auditions for a part in their annual musical, and he knows before the audition is done that the leading role is his.

For weeks, he attends rehearsals and tests his limits, interacting with humans in a meaningful way for the first time in decades. Everything about it is unnatural, conversations proving such a strain to him; even to his own ears, his voice sounds stilted and his answers clipped. More than once, he arouses suspicions when he responds to questions that have never been spoken aloud, and it is only by the grace of his "gift" that he manages to recover.

Many nights, after everyone else has left, he drops his head into his hands, relaxing his jaw for the first time in hours and letting tension pour off of him, wondering at how he could have made such a terrible mistake

But isn't until the second week of rehearsals that he finally realizes just how terrible of a mistake it truly is.

He's read the script. Of course he has.

But still, as he walks into the theatre one Wednesday evening, he doesn't completely understand what he is seeing in the director's head. There is a mass of coppery hair and white, faintly luminous skin.

And lips.

His lips.

Edward feels the handle of the door break off in his hand, his feet stilling on the entry mat. He is frozen. Completely frozen.

But not unnoticed.

"Edward, there you are!"

Edward does not breathe. He cannot. He cannot see the blood racing so lushly beneath fragile, translucent flesh. He cannot hear the beating of hearts all around him.

He cannot look at his co-star's lips.

"Edward?"

The woman is in front of him, her eyes worried. Through her gaze, Edward sees his own pained one, the darkness of his eyes making him wince.

He wants.

He wants touch and sex and blood.

And he does not want to kiss this woman.

"I'm sorry," he manages, and in spite of the turmoil in his head, his voice sounds steady enough. Hearing her intention to try to take his hand, Edward stuffs both into his pockets and weakly smiles. "I'm just not feeling terribly well today."

She searches his face, and he fights the urge to shy away. Her mind finds him pale, but otherwise fine, and she hesitates before finally nodding. "Perhaps something you ate?"

Edward laughs. "Perhaps."

For two hours, the rehearsal proceeds without major incident. Edward is so keenly focused on the director's thoughts that he nearly misses a cue, and he registers surprise in more than one person's thoughts at how close he came to making a mistake.

Finally, they begin to block the last, as-yet unrehearsed scene, and Edward finds himself more tense than usual, his jaw tight and his nostrils flaring. Sensing the unease that he is causing, he tries to keep himself in check, but there is nothing he can do.

For the first time in more than seven decades, there will be flesh against his lips.

He cannot breathe.

But then again, he does not have to.

Emboldened by that realization, Edward allows his arm to be placed around a woman's waist, his hand moving to her face, feeling warmth flow through every part of him. At each movement, he is prepared for the tiniest snap. For the slightest hint of blood or whimper of pain.

He is prepared to run.

Touching the woman the way he touches his piano, he forces himself to lean in. So gently, so softly, he places his lips on hers. Scanning her mind, desperately, he waits for horror. For her to recoil from the frigid texture of his skin and of his kiss.

Only it never comes.

There is awareness, sure. Surprise. But then, impossibly, there is elation. And it occurs to Edward, finally, that the feelings this woman has for him run deeper than his music. That she honestly _cares_ for him.

He manages, if only barely, to moderate his response to both the revelation and her scent, concluding the terrifying, risky kiss with the subtlest of pressure against her lips. Then finally, with relief, he withdraws.

Separated from her skin, he can think more clearly, following the director's orders with a casual precision that belies the trembling hiding just below the surface of his limbs. Once he is convinced that no one has noticed his near breakdown, he relaxes just a little further, excusing himself as soon as they have concluded the scene.

That night, sitting in a corner of his rented room, with his knees drawn up against his chest, Edward replays the first kiss of his life over and over. Again and again. Maddeningly, he can witness it in borrowed memories from every possible angle, and he grows more sick with his skin and with himself with every rehashing.

Truly, he thinks to himself, his heart is made of stone.

For no matter how he tries, he feels nothing.

There is nothing still alive enough inside of him to feel anything at all.

…

Over the next ten years, Edward alternates between his comfortable life as a traveling bard and the more difficult, more taxing work of musical theatre. Still nervous about his own visibility, anticipating the inevitable day when he will be discovered as something entirely _other_, he only acts in small theatres in even smaller towns. Once, he even enrolls in a high school for a semester, amusing himself with his own ability to pass for his body's age of seventeen, when inside he feels so old.

Each time, the act of playing a part becomes more natural. The requisite touches and casual displays of affection become just that. Casual. His own despair at the callous nature of his petrified heart slowly dissipates, and he accepts his lot in life as a man who will only know affection as part of an act.

When it is demanded as a part of the role that he must play.

Finally, on a day like any other, Edward wanders into a city he has not visited in decades and begins his typical routine of looking for venues in which to perform. It is as he is making his rounds that he happens to pass by a closed-down theatre and hears voices inside discussing casting for a new show. The names of the different roles sift through his consciousness, and soon there is no doubt in Edward's mind as to the title of the play.

His fascination with the character of the Phantom has waxed and waned over the decades, but it has never died completely. Hearing the words and thoughts of the people within, it is as if a checklist is being run through in his head. The production will be a small touring one, never staying anywhere for long, and avoiding the larger cities that have seen Phantom after Phantom pass through. While the directors have names in mind for both Christine and Raoul, the Phantom himself is still a sticking point, and they have resigned themselves to holding open auditions for the role.

That evening, Edward holes himself up in his hotel room, eschewing air and people and thoughts the way he would the sun, running over the soundtrack and the risks of the venture he is too weak to resist. A couple of hours before sunrise, he retreats even farther, out into the closest thing to wilderness he can find. There amongst the trees and deer, he hunts and feeds and thinks. Each thudding pulse of hot, weak blood that gushes through his throat fills him just a little, the _life_ inside his dead, cold hands growing stronger.

Along with his resolve.

Taking the dim grey of an overcast sky as an omen, Edward retreats to his rented room and changes into fresh clothes before setting out. At the theatre he passed by the day before, he inquires about auditions. Unable to supply a resume, he is viewed quite skeptically.

Right up until he smiles.

With a flustered look and a blush, the secretary's mind becomes more pliant, her thoughts bending to ones of Edward's obvious star potential, and he finds himself with an appointment with the director for later that afternoon. He winks and thanks the woman, and to her eyes, he appears casual and charming. Inside, however, he is rocking with self-disgust, angered at how easy it is to twist flighty minds to his will using the gifts that are meant to enable him to kill.

Hoping to hurry the hours before his audition, Edward inspects the long, white lines of his hands, asking casually if the theatre has a working piano. When he is directed breathily to a practice room at the end of the hall, he again smiles.

Sitting before the instrument, he tests the first few notes. And then, with the door open, he begins to sing.

The changes to the cloud of thoughts hovering around him is immediate, attention and interest growing with every note. Still, it takes three full songs, including a pitch-perfect rendition of The Music of the Night, before one mind separates itself from all the rest. Edward hides his smirk as the thoughts intensify, footfalls sounding just outside the door.

"What's your name?"

Edward's hands lift off of the keys, and with deliberate slowness he turns. While her age is clear, the woman standing before him has a sparkle to her eyes and a quick, agile mind. Before she even speaks, her thoughts are already racing to how he will look in make-up, and to how the iconic mask will sit against his skin.

And Edward is unprepared for the power of that image, even though it is only a passing fancy in a stranger's mind. He sees himself in just the same way, disfigured instead of beautiful, with his ugly pieces on prominent display.

And it feels right.

Without hesitation, he rises. And then smoothly, he offers her his hand, opening his mouth and speaking three words that will haunt him for the rest of his years.

"Edward," he says. "Edward Masen."

…

After decades of slow, monotonous traveling, Edward's life is suddenly thrust into a flurry of activity. There are costume fittings and make-up consultations and an infinite series of lies anytime anyone's thoughts turn to the nature of his skin. These are lies that he is practiced in, falling from his lips more easily than his name.

His own name.

_Why on Earth did he give her his actual name?_

He ponders that among so many other questions, alone in his room, recovering every night from so many voices. So many thoughts.

As pre-production ramps up into high gear, Edward is thankful for the chance to lose himself in rehearsals. His voice is ready and strong, and he finds himself sinking deeper and deeper into the role.

On some level, it is like his first encounter with human blood, he thinks. There is a relief to giving in and giving up, surrendering himself to being someone else. While he still must keep his physical strength held tightly in check, he is finally free to set loose feelings that have always sat, heavy and stone inside of him.

When he sings of loneliness and the solace of a subtle organ tone, it is like he is singing of his own life. When he gives voice to lusts he has never before betrayed, owning to murder and to wanting, it is like he can feel his own terrible guilt unwinding.

And when he speaks of love and of showing someone _everything_, it is as if he is singing his most carefully guarded, most impossibly longed-for fantasy.

…

Edward may still be dressed in street clothes, but it feels as if he is cloaked in darkness. Moving sinuously around a stage that should be thick with fog, he circles a woman who is symbolic of that mate that he will never have. Of the woman he will never touch or love.

"I am your angel," he croons, all seduction and low tones, his mind so _clear_. "Come to me, angel of music …" He repeats the entreaty over and over, daring to ask.

Asking this woman to come to him.

Deep inside her role as well, the woman who plays Christine sways, falling into a trance of his Phantom's making. Throughout the empty theatre, her voice echoes, climbing higher and higher, until with one swift breath, it breaks.

Shatters.

Her piercing scream fills Edward with the memory of pain and agony and the tremulous triumph of success. He can taste blood on his tongue, can feel the ripe scent of it in the air.

But it is not until the echoes of the shriek ebb and still that he realizes the scent is real.

He freezes, ignoring the applause of the few stagehands and other performers, black eyes scanning everywhere, his nostrils flaring.

It is not fresh blood. Oh, no.

But it is thick. Rich. Sweet.

Edward _wants_.

Waving his hand, he lets the assembled cast members know that he needs a few minutes, ostensibly to make a phone call. He does not wait for a response, moving out into the theatre and following the glowing scent of life and of blood until he arrives at the director's office. With all the restraint in his body, he doesn't rip the door off its hinges. He doesn't storm in, venom dripping down his chin.

He doesn't break a tender neck.

Or drink.

A small woman sits at the director's desk, her face obscured by a long fall of rich brown hair. Try as he may, he cannot make out her features, but he knows.

He knows that she is the one that smells of heaven and hell.

For a moment, his resolve seems to waver, his hand poised to crush the handle of the door. He sees what will happen in his mind. He can _taste_ it. A wet pulse, perfect and full. A crushed spine. Life pouring sweetly down his throat.

Pain.

In the wake of the chill that rushes down his spine, he sees the rest now, too. He sees a hastily disposed of corpse. Another murder. The director who, as a witness, must die for Edward's lust as well. Edward's place in the company will be forfeit, his plans ruined.

_And everyone knows his real name._

At just that moment, the woman within stirs, her head lifting. With a start, Edward realizes exactly how distraught he will look, how monstrous he will appear when viewed through her eyes, and too quickly, he turns.

He is already halfway down the hall before he realizes that, not once in the entire time that he was planning to feed from her, did he ever hear an inkling of her thoughts.

…

By the time Edward rejoins the rehearsal, they have moved on to a scene in which his character does not appear. There are a few curious glances, and as usual, Edward is a victim of his own success. Because he is always so focused, so single-minded on the music and the role, his momentary lapse is noticed.

The scent of the sweetest possible blood still hangs wetly in the air as he resumes his place on the stage, but he tries to push it down. There is no option not to breathe, but there is music.

And the music, as always, is his savior.

Losing himself in the world of bitterness and passion, Edward tamps down his own desires in favor of imagined ones. So focused is he on the intricate dance of voices and the subtle play of the piano, that he hardly notices the first fresh wave of scent. The silent mind entering what is, for all intents and purposes now, his home.

When realization dawns, Edward is already too deep into the song to retreat. And so, with passion he did not know himself to be capable of, he belts out the final words:

"Say you'll share with me one love, one lifetime..."

As he sings, there is no need to search the theatre for the source of the blood. He knows.

Already, somehow, he knows.

Holding the name of a woman who symbolizes everything, but, in the end, means nothing, Edward turns. He stares.

And he _knows_.

"That's all I ask of ..."

The actress opposite him moves to remove the prop of his mask, but it does not matter. Any masks he might have worn over a century of lonely travels are gone. There are no other thoughts inside his mind. None at all.

Instead, there are only wide, brown eyes and a feeling of warmth so intense he does not dare to give it a name.

But it has a name.

He knows it does.

The word sticks in Edward's scorched and desperate throat as he tears his gaze away, focusing on anything. Nothing. As the music fades, thoughts rush back into his mind.

But it doesn't matter.

The only thoughts he hears are his own.

_Mate_

My _mate. _

The parts of him that are more vampire than man tense and coil, recognizing the missing pieces of himself that he has lived without for over a century. Instinctively, he wants to _run_. To use the strength and speed that he has locked away so deeply in his chest. He wants to chase this silent mind. This exotic and sweet-smelling fruit. This long-lost part of his own now-burning heart.

To take and drink and keep and love.

To_ live_.

Only he doesn't.

After decades of denial, Edward finds that the the man outweighs the monster after all, and his immediate reaction is to reject these instincts as _wrong_. Still staring down, he fights his desires down the way he does his ones for death and blood.

Somehow, he manages to let everything he has ever wanted walk away.

…

That night, Edward doesn't only hunt. He devours. He _slaughters_. Flushed and powerful, he runs for miles before returning to the city, his head clearer now but still possessed by images and lusts he doesn't know how to contain.

And then, he stops containing them entirely. Instead of turning left, he turns right, heading not for his rented room but for the theatre. With quick, deft movements, he makes a series of locks succumb to him, and then he is in the director's office, manilla file folders scattered everywhere.

And then there is one.

Just one.

The paper itself holds the scent he has been longing for and dreading, his fingers moving gently over ivory sheets and tracing letters the way that he would trace the body of his lover, if she would have him.

If he could only have _her_.

Finally, he focuses in on the top of the page again, letting syllables roll over his tongue. He breathes the name so quietly. But still, it is loud.

Loud enough to shatter stone.

"Isabella Swan," he whispers. And somehow, he knows. He looks up from the paper to stare with wonder at the darkness all around him.

And with reverence, he murmurs, simply, "Bella."

…

The next day, before rehearsal, Edward scours minds the way a dying man would search for water. He even goes so far as to make small talk, engendering more than a few murmurs of surprise from those who have written him off as hopelessly taciturn. The small talk leads nowhere, though, and soon he is frantic. Finally, even though he already knows it, he takes the risk and asks the director for the name of the girl he interviewed the day before.

Memories of her face move through the director's mind, and Edward stores them all away to savor and study later. Once he confirms that Bella has agreed to join the company and that she will be starting the following week, he realizes he has nothing left that he can ask in any sort of a casual way. Still hungry for information, he sifts more finely through the swirl of thoughts, hoping to latch onto something. Anything.

And he curses the decades he spent not talking.

Finally, just when Edward is about to give up, the director looks at him with a puzzled expression. "Why do you ask, anyway? I mean you usually don't take much interest …"

Thankful that the man's thoughts give away the question, Edward quickly settles on a suitable half-truth and interrupts. "It felt like I recognized her."

The director's expression relaxes. "Oh, someone you know then?"

Edward just barely suppresses his laugh. Gruffly, he manages, "Maybe," but what he really means is, "I can't. But I want to. Desperately."

Then, before more words can be exchanged, he abruptly ends the conversation and walks away.

…

During rehearsals, Edward sings more brightly and more passionately than he ever has before. He still sees his own faults and his own mistakes in his tortured lines, but now he sees a different woman in the leading role. And that simple shift in perspective changes everything.

The love that was once so hollow in his unpracticed throat has grown fuller in the hours since desire was kindled from the lumber of his lungs.

Only the hopeless, impossible longing is stronger, too, and it does not escape Edward's attention that fire is his body's only vulnerability.

Especially when his thoughts of Bella glow like sparks.

…

Nothing seems to sooth the fire in his heart. Not hot, rushing blood. Not cool night air.

Standing in a dark and silent forest, Edward lets his mind drift to places just as infinite as the sky above him. For the first time in ages, he thinks of his first and only friend, trying to work out exactly how it was that Carlisle _knew_ and how he had managed to stay away for all those years. There is a long, deep spiral as Edward probes his memories of Carlisle's recollections of a fragile, human Esme. There is a girl and a cast and spark. There is restraint that lasts for a decade.

Edward has nothing like that kind of restraint.

Running back toward the city, he considers every possibility. Every conceivable way that things may transpire when he and Bella finally meet. Fully half of them involve no formal introductions. There is simply a look. A glance.

And then either the frenzy of the bloodlust he is still not sure he can resist, or the most passionate, impossible kiss.

A jolt of pain rocks its way through his chest, and he stops in the middle of the sidewalk, a signpost falling victim to his terrible imagination as metal twists between his hands. Because no matter the scenario – no matter how he imagines himself searching for restraint – it always ends the same way.

It ends with her body rent like that of his first piano, a memory of dry sobs hanging painfully around his eyes.

He's not ready.

But there are things he can do to prepare.

Moving again, Edward covers a few short blocks to a deserted intersection. He turns left instead of right. But he isn't heading to the theatre this time.

Although he has never been there before, Edward knows the way to Bella's apartment better than he knows his own monstrous hands. He follows the streets of the city, spread out before him like a map, and when he reaches the address that her resume betrayed to him, he needs no further directions. Her scent is like a pulse, wafting through the air, and his mouth is a flood of venom, his chest expanding to make way for the piece she is meant to fill inside of him.

Scaling a half dozen flights of rickety balconies, he finally comes to the aching center of the cloud that has drawn him in, and it takes all his strength not to open the single set of windows standing between his body and that of his twisted, impossible desire. Instead, he simply stares through the tiny crack in the curtains at a tiny studio apartment dressed in cream and rose and grey. At a sea of wild, soft hair and parted, sighing lips.

All night Edward stands there, a statue of living stone, barely breathing.

And it doesn't matter that her sleeping mind will never speak to him. Because a new voice has joined the fog of sleeping voices in his head.

The long-silent voice of his own living heart.

…

Over the next week, Edward learns all sorts of things about the object of his desires. He learns that she mumbles in her sleep, and that her life is just as silent as her mind. Slipping away for only as long as he must to attend rehearsals and to hunt, he watches her move around her space, feeling both grateful and furious that he never has a chance to see her undress.

Out in the world, too, he watches.

He finds that she keeps a strange and subtle distance from the world, and that, while she is achingly beautiful, few people really seem to notice her. In his idle time, he contemplates that fact, wondering if it is the set of her shoulders or the softness of her voice, or perhaps the way in which she is always hidden behind her hair. He takes a special joy in watching the few key moments when she clears her throat or parts her lips to speak, forcing a stranger to turn unseeing eyes on her.

Because, in their minds, he gets to discover her all over again.

And every day she becomes more beautiful to him.

When the day finally comes that he is forced to face her with no glass or walls to absorb the intensity of his attraction, he is still not ready. But he is closer.

The moment she sets foot inside the theatre, he knows. Putting down the cup of coffee he is not drinking so as not to crush its handle, he forces a stiff smile and places his hands into his pockets.

Although it would be muffled to human ears, Edward hears the stage manager's voice approaching from down the hall. "Through here is the kitchen."

A quiet, "Got it," is offered in reply. In the stage manager's mind, Edward can see that Bella's eyes are cast down and that she is watching her feet. Like an experienced stage tech, she is dressed all in black, the fabric of her slacks brushing with every movement of her thighs, her pale throat exposed over a modest v-necked blouse. Unusually, her hair is up, and Edward barely suppresses his curse when the stage manager looks away before he has a chance to memorize her ears.

Moments later the door opens, and Edward finally has a chance to stare at those oft-hidden parts of her himself. He vaguely hears the stage manager's hurried apology for the intrusion, but otherwise, he pays the man no mind, his gaze immediately fixating on the glints of tiny silver hoops in soft, pink lobes, arching into subtle curves of cartilage and skin. His hands clench even farther into fists inside his pockets, the desire to touch the spot at the top of her jaw nearly overwhelming him.

And it is nearly as strong as his need to carry her away and tear into the beating flesh of her neck.

Quick introductions are made, and toward the end of them, Edward hears his name. Drawing his eyes across the flushed skin of her cheek, he meets the same warm, brown eyes that speak to something tender and wanting inside of him.

"Everyone, this is Isabella Swan. She'll be helping out on the fly crew and also as a stagehand."

Edward watches as she nods and cannot help noticing that she never takes her eyes off of him. The stage manager is already saying goodbye and stepping back out into the hall when Edward finally finds his voice.

So softly, he says the words he has been practicing for so long. "Hello, Bella."

Brown eyes widen, the scent of blood intensifying as Bella's heartbeat quickens. Speaking to Edward alone, she replies simply, "Hello. It's nice to meet you."

As the door closes behind her, Edward finally pulls in a long, deep breath. The air is still potent enough to make him burn, but it is a good burn. A cleansing fire.

And despite its best intentions, it is a fire that has failed to destroy him.

…

The final two weeks of rehearsals continue without incident or death, although Edward frequently finds himself huddled in the men's room after scenes, his knees tight against his chest and his head hitting the wall in frustration. Mortar gives and plaster cracks, and yet nothing about the situation relents. The voices recede beneath the music, and the notes and words go far in sustaining him, but still. She is _so close_. And he feels as if he knows everything and nothing about her.

A million times, he begins to seek her out beneath the stage or amidst the rigging, but each time, some twinge of fear holds him back. His control is tenuous, and he feels like every wire of his being is stretched so tightly that the subtlest of pressure will make him snap.

He remembers the snapping of bones.

He doesn't want to relive it again.

Edward's only solace comes at night when he is sated and flushed and full from the hunt. It is then and only then that he can sit there on her balcony, staring through the gap between the curtains, trying to force himself to breathe more deeply. It is only then that, without distraction, he can simply listen to her heart beat.

It is only then that he knows a modicum of peace.

…

The scent of dust is hanging all about the theatre. Scenery and costumes have been packed away, and there are trucks waiting just outside. With only the slightest shudder of misgiving, Edward takes his one, lone suitcase and boards a tour bus.

At the same time, Bella boards a different one.

And the entire way to the first town on the tour, Edward stares out the back of the bus, putting all his concentration to keeping it well within his sights.

When they finally pull into a hotel in the center of an unremarkable town, a tired assemblage of cast and crew descend down to the ground. Most wait, milling around until they receive their room assignments.

Edward alone knows exactly where he is going.

Inside, he claims the room he arranged a week ago, allowing himself just once to touch the handle of the door beside his own before heading inside. Still annoyed that he could not arrange for an actual piano to be installed, he stares with resignation and hope at the keyboard that traveled ahead of him, and which is already set up in a corner of the room.

For nearly an hour, he sits before it, staring idly at the keys and reminding himself to touch them gently.

All the things he loves, he must touch _gently_.

Finally, there is the sound of something stirring in the room next door, and even through the plaster, he can taste her. Even though he wants to watch her, he has decided to deny himself that pleasure for this and all nights, until the one when finally, someday, she invites him in.

Instead, he sighs. And for the time being, he contents himself with the most perfect, most delicate metronome in the world.

For a long while, that metronome remains too quick, the rough sliding of too-stiff sheets distracting him as a body tosses and turns. Fearing that he will go mad with the need to see the motion of that body for himself, Edward turns the keyboard on in a fit of distraction, adjusting the volume so that it only just penetrates the thin hotel walls.

Without knowing what he is doing, possessed of some strange instinct he cannot explain, Edward allows his hands to find the opening notes of a lullaby his mother used to play when he was a child. After only a few short bars, the movement next door stills, the steady beating of a precious heart growing slow.

And when he finally hears the soft mumbling he has grown so fond of, Edward looks up from the keys.

And for what feels like the first time in a century, he smiles.


	4. Masquerade

Everything Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer. Everything Phantom of the Opera belongs to Andrew Lloyd Weber, Charles Hart and Gaston Leroux.

Thanks to antiaol, bmango and hunterhunting for their help, commas and kind words.

Thanks also to JAustenLover and Durameter. Without them, this story would not exist.

For those of you who read the original Phantomward one-shot from my Twi25 last year, some of this week's chapter will be familiar to you. Don't skim too much, though, because more than a couple of things have changed...

* * *

**Chapter 4: Masquerade**

In the eighth week of the tour, Bella Swan steps off the bus in yet another town and checks into another hotel room. Sliding the key card home, she thinks back on the first town they visited, remembering with a wry smile the trepidation she had felt as she'd stepped through the door into a generic, sterile space.

While it had been a relief to get away from home and from all of the memories that had laid in wait for her there, Bella had been very uneasy about the realities of traveling. Never one to to sleep well away from her bed, she'd tossed and turned relentlessly, wondering if she would be good enough at her job. If the strange feelings of being seen and of being watched would ever recede.

If she would ever,_ ever_ manage to fall asleep.

The first few soft notes drifting on the air had taken her by surprise. She'd frozen, listening intently and trying to recognize something familiar in their cadence and their tone. Unable to quite touch the spot inside her heart that the music seemed to speak to, she had shifted to her side and hugged her pillow tight, feeling truly _held_ for the first time in her sleep. After a while, the motion of her body and the relentless rattling in her mind had slowly given way to the soft rhythm of the music.

And she'd slept so soundly, that night and every night since.

She'd dreamed, too. Vivid dreams were not unusual for Bella, but still, the constancy and intensity of these dreams had been new. The first morning, the images of her sleeping mind had parted like a fog with the gentle opening of her eyes, leaving her with only vague impressions of cool air and of brilliant golden eyes.

Now, she is so eager to fall into the depths of that world of music and dreams that she finds herself going to bed earlier and earlier. And each night, the song seems to be waiting for her, the quiet opening notes hanging still and unspoken on the air until the moment she closes her eyes. Then, in the darkness, they bloom.

Setting her things down beside the bed, Bella takes a moment to look around. The room is not unlike the others she has stayed in over the past few weeks, but she still feels as if there is something different about the air. Finally, she realizes the one feature of this room that is new: it has an extra door.

For a moment, she considers this development. Briefly, she even imagines knocking on the door and introducing herself to whichever tech or crew member has been assigned to be her neighbor for the next two weeks, but her shyness quickly gets the better of her. Instead, she simply moves to stand before it and places one flat palm against the wood.

And then she gets ready for bed, noticing only subconsciously in her sleep that the music seems slightly louder than it did the night before.

…

The next day, Bella rises early, feeling refreshed and optimistic, the way she only does after a night of peaceful sleep. Dressing in her armor of solid black, she joins the other techs at the theatre and settles into the comfortable work of preparing the space for the world of illusions and music in which she lives.

It is a stripped-down production that they are enacting, she knows. While the magic of the Phantom is still alive and well in many people's hearts, it has dwindled in their pocketbooks, and their stagecraft reflects that. The ropes and rigs are as minimal as they can be, the sets designed more to evoke than to illustrate. Still, there are some elements of the show that cannot be foregone, and in the late afternoon, Bella begins the happy work of unpacking and assembling the rig for the chandelier.

As she polishes both filaments and glass, she reflects on the selfish joy she finds in her part of the spectacle, too. Working invisibly behind the scenes, it is a rush to create an event so shocking as this one. And, for her, it is an ever bigger rush to observe.

From experience, she knows that when she stands on the scaffold, rope in hand, poised to drop the giant fixture, she will be able to spend a few precious moments simply watching. Listening. At no other point in the production does she feel so close to what is happening on stage.

Or to _him_.

Edward Masen. Her own personal Phantom.

Since the moment their eyes first connected across a vast and empty stage, Bella has felt drawn to him. Too shy to approach and too cognizant of all the ways she has been burned in the past by powerful, high-profile men, she has kept her attraction to herself, a gently glowing spark she holds protectively, close to her chest. She finds that the beauty of his face and of his voice both speak to unsatisfied parts of her, and yet that there is something else there, too. Some longing and some connection - some haunted sadness and isolation that echoes her own.

She feels she _knows_ him, even though she scarcely knows herself sometimes.

And she has fantasized often, in the depths of her dreams, that perhaps she will someday have the chance to know him better still.

After putting the final touches on the large prop sitting in the center of the stage, Bella gives a nod to another tech. Together, they operate the winches and wrangle with the ropes until the chandelier is hanging in its proper place, obvious and ominous above the invisible audience.

And then, with her work done, she retreats back into the comfort of the shadows beneath the stage, where illusions and magic are real - and where they are both things she can create with her hands.

...

The next evening, the Phantom of the Opera opens to a sold-out crowd. The company has been afforded only one full dress rehearsal, and Bella finds herself wracked with nerves as she navigates the narrow passageways and darkened sets. While the score and libretto remain the same from town to town, the intricacies of the spaces behind the scenes change dramatically, and the entire crew finds itself scrambling.

Especially when one of the costume people calls out sick.

Frantically dashing from one end of the stage to another, Bella is shocked to find herself confronted by the stage manager. In no unclear terms, he tells her that she, of all people, will need to help with a costume change tonight. She is too flustered to give voice to her concerns, and so instead she simply waves the man away and continues with what she had been doing before he had bothered her.

The first half of the show passes by without incident, although there are more than a few close calls. Climbing up the scaffold to the pulley that will allow her to operate the chandelier, Bella is so agitated and so concerned about missing her cue that she nearly runs into someone. The other stage tech she had nearly collided with coughs and apologizes and says he didn't see her there, and she manages not to make the obvious comment - that no one ever does, and that by now she is more than used to it.

Finally, she arrives up at her spot, and she discovers with delight that she has more than a minute to spare.

It is the very best minute of her day.

It is the minute she gets to spend watching and listening, the music floating up toward her as if the notes are meant for her alone.

_Say you'll share with me one love, one lifetime... _

_... lead me, save me from my solitude... _

For a full twelve measures, she stands there, leaning over the edge of the balcony and watching the scene beneath her unfold. While some parts of it are old hat to her by now, there are other elements that she feels certain will never grow stale - elements like Edward Masen's face and voice. In the harsh glow of the stage lights, he is an even more striking presence than usual. His iconic white mask practically glows, and she could swear sometimes that it seems as if his skin is shimmering, too.

... _say you'll want me with you, here beside you... _

With a sigh, she looks away again, her hand wrapping itself securely around the rope and preparing for her cue. She is early, but she knows that if she allows herself even a few more measures, she will be lost, too caught up in the beauty of his voice and presence to do her job.

And if she loses her job, she'll lose her one connection to him, too.

... _anywhere you go, let me go, too... _

... _Christine, that's all I ask of ... _

One tear slips from her eye, as it always does to hear the lonely longing in his voice when he begs. The darkness sweeps over her, her eyes drifting closed as she imagines this time that instead of the invisible stage tech, she is the heroine. That he really is the Phantom, the monster who both gives in to and transcends his nature in the name of the woman that he loves.

Only in _her_ version of the play, when she rips away the mask and the audience shrieks, she holds her tongue. And instead of screaming, she places both hands on either side of his disfigured face.

And slowly, so tenderly, she kisses him.

The haunting sound of the organ disrupts her revery, her eyes opening to pitch black, her head shaking. She tenses for just a second, waiting for the laugh, soulless and distraught. When it comes, she is ready, and she allows her body to do what it has to, yanking at the rope as the brilliant lights begin to dance. Behind the curtains, she knows it is all in play, that the crystal is shaking, sounds of shattering and screaming erupting.

And then the crash as the enormous prop of the chandelier plummets and falls.

Bella takes three quick, deep breaths, adrenaline spiking after pulling off the big scene, and then she is in motion again. At the base of the ladder, he is standing there in all his glory, waiting for her to reattach his mask. She knows full well that this should be a makeup artist's job. Or someone else's anyway.

But tonight it is hers.

She shivers again as her shaking hands find the bottle of glue, trying to breathe and almost failing as she steps into him, smelling the cool, clean scent of him as she washes the brush over his skin.

And then she makes one tiny mistake. One error that could land them all in dire straights.

She looks into his eyes.

Swimming with gold, they are the most beautiful eyes she has ever seen, and she cannot help but be lost in them. For a full thirty seconds, she is helpless, caught in a gaze that cuts through to the very core of her, revealing secrets and wants and deep desires. It is just like the first time.

Like every time.

"Bella?"

His voice is a whisper, and she starts, shocked he knows her name and embarrassed to have allowed herself to lose sight of what she is here to do. A cold hand closes around her own, and she feels it all along the line between her stomach and her thighs, before he places the lifeless mask in her palm.

She swallows and nods, resuming her task as she tenderly lifts the mask to his face, lining it up and pressing, shivering yet again as her fingertips trace over the skin near his jaw only to find it hard and cold. The sound of his ragged breathing surprises her as they touch, and it is at that moment that she realizes the only breath she has heard in the entire time they have been so close has been her own.

His hand pulls hers from his jaw, and she freezes when he lifts it to his mouth, kissing softly at the back of her knuckles.

And then he is gone.

…

The rest of the production flies by in a blur. Bella moves from one station to the next, performing tasks automatically, and struggling the entire time to push the memory of cool lips on her flesh to the back of her mind. But she never quite succeeds.

When the final curtain call arrives at last, she watches as she always does from the wings, applauding politely as actors and actresses surge past. The leads finally begin to make their appearances, Christine and Raoul, and she tries to ignore the flutters of annoyance and of envy, knowing full well that the actors are not responsible for their characters' actions.

The audience erupts when _he_ appears, and she finds herself clapping harder as well. She can rationalize it, because Edward Masen truly is one of the most gifted performers she has ever seen.

But she also knows it's more than professional admiration that drives the enthusiastic motion of her hands.

Hands that feel the memory of clapping and of ice-cold lips long after the theatre is empty, and she is left lingering there alone.

She does not know exactly why she stays, other than a vague disinterest in leaving the space where, for just a moment, her hopes and desires had seemed to bloom. With a heavy heart, she rechecks ropes and dusts off props, oiling a particularly tricky winch. When she is finally out of tasks to pretend to do, she sighs.

But then, she hears music. Music that arches and soars. Music that is lonelier than that in the score, and yet which speaks of the same broken heart and the same struggle with a world that has turned away from monstrous acts and a monster's face.

Music that speaks to a sleeping part of Bella's heart and yet which her waking mind cannot quite place.

With the silent sorts of footfalls she uses in her work, Bella steps down from the scaffolding to land gently at the level of the stage. Feeling the music in her lungs, she is pulled forward until she can see the long fingers she knows so well dancing over ivory keys, and there she pauses, staring at the profile of Edward Masen's face in silhouette.

He is so beautiful. And so alone.

Scarcely breathing, she tentatively begins to bridge the distance between the two of them, quiet steps over wooden floorboards pulling her almost magnetically toward the grand piano. Toward _him_. When she is so close that she thinks she should be able to feel his body heat, he shifts over on the bench, still staring down at the piano even as he is indicating with his head that she should sit beside him. Scarcely breathing, she does.

"Did you enjoy the show, Bella?"

She does not know if he is asking her opinion of the evening's production, or of his own quiet performance - the private concert she is beginning to wonder if he put on for her alone.

"Beautiful," she whispers, ruing herself for letting so much rapture seep into her voice.

"Yes. Yes, you are."

At his words, Bella both melts and stiffens. They are the sorts of words her timid, skittish heart has imagined him uttering so many times in her dreams. But then again, they are also so similar to words that she has heard before from men who have betrayed her.

And yet, for some reason, she trusts them this time.

More, she trusts in that one shimmering moment, months ago, when she had stared into his eyes for the very first time and felt _seen_. She trusts in the feeling she'd had of recognizing a part of him, and of him recognizing something in her.

Emboldened by her memory and shocked only by her own level of comfort with this, Bella allows herself to lean into him, her breath shuddering when he continues to play on, undisturbed. With her head resting on the solid expanse of his shoulder, she feels the music flowing through her chest, moving only with the light rocking of his arm as it drifts across the keys.

And in that moment, it is like all of her dreams have come true.

That she truly _knows_ him the way that she has always imagined she someday would.

As if they are merely picking up in the middle of a conversation instead of speaking for the very first time, Bella quietly asks, "Why the Phantom?"

She is curious to hear his answer, even though on some level she is sure she already knows. She knows that it would be impossible for a man to sing the way that he does unless he knew the pain of that half existence, of living so much of life in shadow, uncertain and estranged.

His hands falter slightly on the keys, but his surprise seems to be more with the content of her question than with her assumed level of familiarity.

"Why not?" He shrugs, his voice as smooth and melodic in speech as it had ever been in song. "Not all monsters are so easy to pick out, you know. Some lurk much more subtly. Lust more silently. Kill more violently."

A shiver runs through her spine as she hears in his words a quiet confirmation of his own dark lusts and deeds. But beneath it all, she hears his regret, echoing deeply.

"But most of them aren't so tortured by it," she whispers. "Most don't know monstrosity from humanity."

Her hands become bold, moving with only the slightest bit of trembling to place themselves over his, effectively silencing him.

His hands are still cold.

Pressing the metaphor, she makes a guess and then a leap. "Christine was a fool," she whispers.

Her heart falls when his bright gold eyes drift closed, his head slowly shaking with a silent no.

"She wasn't. She made the right choice."

She places one slender hand on his cheek, right over the place where she applied the glue, and again he exhales roughly, a little shudder of what she thinks may be pleasure rushing gently through his stony skin.

"I don't care what you've done."

His eyes float open, his nostrils flaring slightly before his chest becomes still.

"Bella … "

"Edward … "

Faster than she can recognize, his hand is just beneath her chin, tipping her head back gently, and a cold fingertip is brushing across her throat.

In a freezing breath across her ear, he whispers, "Maybe you should."

And then, before she can think to blink or breathe or scream, he is gone. Bella staggers to her feet, bewildered, her heart pounding with equal parts terror and arousal, and it takes her a moment to find him again. Hovering in the shadows against the back wall of the stage, he stands in a crouch, barely visible but for the glint of golden light reflecting off of his darkening eyes and the slight sheen of his too-bright skin.

And in that moment, although she is not yet able to give it a name, Bella is certain that there is a reason why Edward Masen identifies with monsters so closely.

She shudders. And yet she is still not repelled.

When he finally speaks again, it is with a voice that is tight and cold, nearly bereft of all the musicality it had borne before and riddled with an ancient, aching guilt. "In the play, there's a reason why Christine chose the way she did," he rasps. "She saw what that life would have been like with a Phantom. Always in the dark. Together and yet alone."

Bella hears a warning in his throat, but it is one she chooses to ignore. Her step toward him is mirrored by his step back and away from her, and yet still she persists.

"She was a coward," she insists.

"She was _smart_."

Bella shakes her head. "The Phantom wasn't evil. He was - "

"He was a _monster_, Bella." Edward resembles a statue, standing against the wall. Bella has effectively backed him into a corner, and in the wake of her continuing advance, he has nowhere left to go. With her next step, she watches his stiff form melt, wracked by a tremor, and then his eyes focus on hers, burning with loathing and with liquid, tremulous gold.

"The only things the Phantom ever did right were to teach Christine to sing," he spits, before taking in a torturous, choking inhale.

She does not see him move, but somehow he is already out of sight before Bella hears his final words - words that chill her to her bones. His hollow voice drifts down to her, as if from empty space.

Like a whisper. Like a breath.

"And then to let her go."

…

That night, Bella undresses in darkness and lies in a bed that feels even colder than his skin. Wrapped in music, she tries desperately to sleep, but her mind refuses to become so settled. Over and over again, in the twisted edges of the thoughts that creep between wakefulness and dreams, she sees a figure crouched in darkness. Alone.

Only she is never sure if the silhouette is Edward's or her own.

As she continues to toss and turn, she feels the atmosphere in the room slowly shift, the music that has long seemed to hold her softly in invisible arms now turning darker. More haunted. More regretful.

Sitting up suddenly in bed, Bella hears the word 'regret' pass through her mind again, but this time it is in Edward Masen's liquid voice. At that thought, she feels a tug, like there is something inside of her that moves to the same somber rhythm as the melody soaking in through the hotel walls. But it is only as her eyes catch on the sliver of light seeping through the crack beneath the door between hers and the adjoining room that she is able to give that tug a name.

That she is able to identify that unbearable ache.

That need to take those dark and lonely notes and fill them, finally, with light.

* * *

A huge thank you to the **Indie Fic Pimps** and **Dragonfly336** for their awesome review of TMotN, and to **jaimearkin** for its swank new banner. Check them out at **http:/ indieficpimp . blogspot . com/2011/05/new-fic-of-week-59-515 . html **

The story has also been nominated for Fic of the Week at **The Lemonade Stand**. If you have a chance, consider swinging by to give it your vote. **http:/ tehlemonadestand . blogspot . com/**

Last but not least, my other WIP completed last week, so TMotN will update weekly from now on. See you next Thursday!


	5. Angel of Music

Everything Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer. Everything Phantom of the Opera belongs to Andrew Lloyd Weber, Charles Hart and Gaston Leroux.

Thanks to antiaol, bmango and hunterhunting for their help, commas and kind words, and eternal gratitude to JAustenLover and Durameter for their generous donation to FGB:Eclipse.

* * *

**Chapter 5: Angel of Music**

With anguish instead of love, Edward Masen moves his hands over slick plastic keys. For hours, he has been varying both the tempo and the melody, playing softer and harder, more sadly and more angrily, but the result is still the same. Try as desperately as he might, the notes are not cathartic tonight.

Not after the song he played on a deserted stage for the only person in the world that he wants to have listen. Not after the indescribable pleasure of warm hands on his frozen skin.

Even the relative silence of his mind is empty, for the only voice that matters now is the one inside him, screaming forlornly for the comfort of his mate. For a moment, he remembers that softly trembling feeling of sitting beside Bella with her head upon his shoulder, his hands aching with the need to touch and kiss and love, and yet curled tightly with the restraint needed not to _break_.

How soft she had felt. How warm and sensual.

How freely she had seemed to offer herself, and how harshly he had recoiled as his hands had touched her throat, certain more than ever that what he loved he would inevitably destroy.

He _wants_ to destroy something tonight. He wants to make something bleed the way his heart feels like it might.

Edward is about ready to smash the keyboard and run wildly into the woods when he hears a stirring in the room next door. Still playing, he feels his hands slow across the keys even as the pulse that is his entire world begins to quicken. If he listens just carefully enough, he swears he can feel the sound of feet on carpet in his petrified bones and sense the shallowness of breaths as they touch the walls.

But the knock is still a surprise.

And the fact that it is a surprise is shocking to him.

His hands freeze on the keyboard, a haunted chord hanging poignantly on the air, and for a moment he is torn with indecision. There is still the attractive option to flee. While everything he has ever wanted is right here - the perfect role, the perfect woman and the most perfect version of his imperfect self that he can imagine - his desire to escape is a difficult instinct to ignore.

It is almost as tempting as the delicate sound of knuckles wrapping insistently against his door.

His insides roil, his absent heart feeling as if it could pound right out of his chest as he slowly rises and moves across the room. Before he can give himself time to second-guess his actions, he feels the smooth surface of the doorknob in his grip, slowly turning, and then the creaking of hinges as the door opens in toward him.

And then there is Bella.

Just Bella.

And it is as if he is melting.

Staring into a soft, pale face and bloodshot eyes, Edward thinks to himself that he has never in his life seen anything more beautiful. He uses all the strength inside him to keep from crushing the doorknob in his hand or crushing his mate against his body. He breathes in and out, his lungs expanding and his throat excruciating. And he stares.

God, but he stares.

But he finds himself completely incapable of speech.

Fortunately, Bella, while clearly affected by his presence, is not nearly so impaired. Speaking familiarly, as if she has known him for the entirety of his long and lonely life, she says simply, "I couldn't sleep."

So much of his terror slips away in the face of the warm feeling rising up inside him. Grinning slightly, he replies, simply, "Me, neither."

Following the gaze of her lovely eyes, Edward watches Bella as she takes in the bare expanse of his room, tensing slightly when she lingers just a beat too long on the perfectly made bed that proves he did not even try to rest. If it evokes questions, she does not voice them, and he finds himself going mad with the curiosity that fills him, wanting to know if she suspects as much as he imagines that she does.

But then, without question or comment, her eyes move on and continue floating about the room. When her gaze pauses on the keyboard, he is relieved to see her face crack into a wide and unguarded smile.

"I thought the music sounded familiar," she murmurs wryly, and then there is heat all along Edward's side as she begins to push forward, entering his space.

Already, this is a line he has never crossed before. He has never been alone in a room with both a woman and a bed, and even though he has gone through the motions of a stilted, stage-crafted kiss, the jolt of arousal coursing through his body surprises him with its ferocity. When she proceeds to accidentally graze his hip with her arm, he feels a tremor and a stirring in his groin that he has never felt in a situation like this before.

He wonders what a less accidental touch would feel like; he wonders at how it would feel to run his hands across her skin.

_Everywhere._

Stunned by the impropriety of his thoughts, Edward turns, guilty and angry at himself, only to find Bella standing in front of the keyboard, her fingertips gently brushing just where his had so recently been. There is something innocent about her, he thinks, and yet something so sensual as well. It makes him hard all over again, but it also makes his heart ache.

He wants to be a blushing boy, courting a girl on his mother's porch.

He wants to be a man, making love to his mate while resting on a bench before those same ivory keys.

Afforded the chance to be neither, he comes to stand beside the woman he cannot quite seem to bring himself to touch. The heat of her body flows through him, palpable even across the inches of space that separate her spine from his chest, and for a moment he luxuriates in the simple comfort of proximity. He draws strength from it, feeling his will and his restraint increase.

And then, quietly, hopefully, he asks, "Do you play?"

…

"Here, like this." Edward shifts his fingers slightly, his heart swelling as Bella's hand moves to copy him.

"Like this?" A quiet chord rings out in the space, and this tone, more than any other, seems to fill his body. Nodding stiffly, he listens as his beloved replays the simple sequence of notes that he has spent the better part of an hour showing her. She is a timid pupil, insecure of her abilities and unsure, but as her comfort grows, she becomes more pliant and more adventurous.

And Edward, for his part, could hear her play the same three chords for hours and never, ever get bored.

"What next?" she asks, excitedly. The shape of her mouth and the flush of her cheeks is so enticing that he can barely remember how to play as he pictures pressing his lips to hers. It is the soft jab of her elbow against his side and then her slight recoil at the ungiving nature of his body that brings him back to himself and back to his sad reality.

"Here," he says, demonstrating on the other end of the keyboard.

Bella tries to make this last, important chord, but fumbles when her index finger fails to reach.

"Try your thumb," he coaches, wincing slightly when she hits the adjacent key. "No, like this." Before he can even think to stop himself, he repositions her hand with his own, his eyes nearly rolling back at the feel of her pliant skin. She, too, stiffens, and he pulls back quickly, preparing to apologize.

"No," she murmurs, grasping his hand and bringing it back to hers. "Again?"

Edward gulps and then positions her fingers and her thumb. "OK?"

"Yes."

He knows that he needs to move his hand. She has the positioning, and there is no longer any reason for the two of them to be touching.

No reason beyond the fact that it feels so right to.

Clearing his throat, Edward finally retreats back to his side of the keyboard. "Now you just put it all together." Slowly, he moves through the sequence, their matching hands playing out the opening bars to a melody that for a century has soothed him. Yet it has never sounded so good to him before. Raspily, he asks, "Do you have it?"

"I think so." Her fingers falter occasionally, but she does seem to have the pattern fairly mastered, and so Edward begins to really play. Picking out the individual notes that form the heart of the melody, he lets their twin, parallel hands make music together.

And he feels so, so warm.

Needing an outlet for the vast and expanding bubble of emotion in his chest, Edward slowly opens his burning throat and lets the melody his mother taught him begin to pour out of his chest. He sings quietly, but with heart, and he knows that anyone who knew him would sense the feeling that consumes him with every breath.

So engrossed is he by the joy of making music with the woman whose warmth has finally thawed his heart that it takes him a moment to realize that Bella is silently moving her lips.

In surprise, he stops playing altogether. "You know this song?"

Bella drops her hands and eyes to her lap, blushing intensely, and Edward is nearly floored by the rush of venom to his mouth and the feel of fire in his throat. She nods, and it only serves to send another rush of wet, lush scent into the desiccated air. "My mother used to sing it to me."

Swallowing desperately, he chokes out, "Mine, too."

"How strange."

Smiling softly, Bella turns to him and places her hand over his palm, and it is so _warm_. So soft.

"Keep playing with me?" she asks quietly.

"Sing with me?"

She shakes her head and flushes a deeper shade of crimson, nearly knocking Edward off of the bench with the allure of her blood, pumping so closely to the surface of her skin. "I can't - I don't - I can't sing."

He gapes. "Anyone can sing."

"Not me. Believe me, I can get a signed affidavit from my fifth grade teacher - "

"Nonsense." Edward will hear none of it. "All you need is a better teacher. Come now, just listen."

Over the next few hours, he plays notes and hums and instructs, luxuriating in the sound of her voice, reluctant as it is, beautiful even when it is hideously off-key. Slowly, she begins to modify and correct the notes, and after a while, he manages to convince her to try the song with him just once.

Just once he wants to revel in an experience that is full of pleasure and free of pain.

This will _not_ be a memory of pain.

He will not let it be.

When the final bar rings gently through the air, he hears Bella's quiet sigh and looks down to find her eyes on the fiery horizon, just barely visible through the gap in the curtains. "We stayed up all night," she murmurs, yawning quietly. "And you don't even seem tired."

"No," he says truthfully. "I've enjoyed this."

Resting her head against his shoulder again, Bella nods. The warmth and the weight of her, leaning softly against his frame, is exquisite after a century without the comfort of another's touch. He wants to hold onto it and her. He wants to never let her go.

But he still doesn't trust himself enough to even hold her.

"Play me a lullabye?" she asks sleepily.

"Of course."

With expert familiarity, Edward's hands find the keys, his shoulders relaxed but firm as he endeavors not to jostle her as he plays. Tenderly, _lovingly_, he pulls forth the notes he played that very first night, in a hotel room in another state.

And a few minutes later, he hears the tell-tale evening of her breath that tells him she is asleep.

Continuing the song, his mind begins to circle, teetering well beyond his control as he tries to imagine what he should do. He _should_ take her back to her room. He _should_ retreat and close the door and let her sleep in peace, untroubled by nightmares of the waking kind.

But he doesn't want to.

Just as he is resigning himself to doing the right thing, Bella stirs and shifts slightly against him. He hears her breath catch, and then a quiet, "Don't leave," escapes her lips.

And his heart almost explodes.

"Alright, love," he whispers. Letting the last notes of the song drift to nothingness, he steels himself, feeling the terror of what he is about to do wash over him.

Finally, so carefully, so gently, he gathers the reason for his existence in his arms. With the utmost tenderness, he lays her body on his bed before climbing in beside her.

And then, for hours, he simply lies there and watches her sleep.

…

For the next two weeks, their lives pass much like that. By day, Edward assumes the persona of the Phantom, singing away a century of guilt and loneliness and finding peace in the beauty he can bring to others' lives. By night, he learns to make music that is born of the utmost love, letting his voice mingle with that of his mate's in a song that is all their own.

And in the deepest parts of that night, he lets his beloved's sleeping heartbeat build another song around his undead, wakeful heart. For the first time, it is a melody he does not need to make to enjoy. Instead, he simply lies there, still and silent and listening. And in that way, he learns that there is happiness to be had in this unlife that he had never known he could be party to.

He never knew there could be so much joy.

For hours and hours, in his room alone, they talk. Slowly, he learns about Bella's life, and he shares what pieces of his own that he is free to. He tells her of his parents in the most general of terms - of a mother that taught him how to play and how to love, and of a father that taught him how to be a man. For the first time in decades, he speaks, too, of his very first friend. He tells her how Carlisle found him at a dark place in his life and tried to teach him how to live.

He does not tell her that she was the first friend of his to finally succeed.

In starts and stops, between songs and sleep, Bella gives him a glimpse into her life, too. He learns about her sad introduction to love and her reluctance to trust. When she speaks of her reasons for joining this particular company, he silently breaks the edge of the piano bench, wood splintering to nothing the way that he would pulverize the man who used her so casually, when she was clearly meant to be cherished and adored.

Then he holds his breath, and with the same hand that has laid life and furniture to waste, he strokes her back consolingly, shuddering at the pleasure of her body's warmth as she buries her head against his chest. And then he holds her. So carefully, so delicately, he enfolds her in his arms.

From that day on, he makes a point of seeking her out in all sorts of situations. He is amused at first by her surprise when he finds her in the break room, reading a book and casually conversing with other stage hands. And he is warmed by her delight when he opts to stay, sitting beside her, speaking to her and touching her as intimately amongst friends and colleagues as he does in the solitude of his room.

But still, none of it is as intimate as he both wants and fears.

…

On their last night in this particular town, Edward urges Bella to go out with the other stage hands. Once he is certain she is gone, he escapes from the hotel and from the concrete that surrounds it, roaming wide into open fields and woods. While he has been taking care to hunt as often as possible, he has been too attached to her side to disappear for long.

Out in the wilderness, he seeks larger game, trying to satisfy the twin lusts within his body for blood and for the physical affirmation of his love.

But only one of them is sated, and at that, it is only barely so.

Discarding another carcass, he feels the intense pulse of warm blood moving through his crystalline veins. Letting the power of that stolen life infuse him, he runs for miles and miles, trying to exercise the strength he must keep so tightly restrained.

All things he loves, he must touch gently.

And he is desperate to touch his Bella.

The soft motions of their hands and of his arms, holding her gently in her sleep, have proven both a comfort and a burden. Constantly frustrated and desirous, he has had to walk away on more than one occasion, nearly mad with the need to tell her what he wants and feels.

And, conversely, to tell her why he is too afraid to take it from her.

Back in his hotel room, soiled and bloody from the hunt, he washes the evidence of his lust from his skin. Beneath the scalding water, he can imagine that it is his own body that is warm and that he is made once more of flesh and bone. Wishing desperately that that were so, he takes his own hand to the flesh that speaks of his constant need for love and touch, stroking softly and then more roughly as the feeling builds.

Still, he cannot bring himself to picture Bella naked or to imagine the multitude of ways in which he wishes he could love her. Instead, he thinks only of her warmth beside his coldness. He imagines his mouth on hers.

And softly, exquisitely, he comes.

...

His hair is still damp when he hears the door to Bella's room swing open, and he listens carefully as she sets her things down, hoping she will choose to join him soon. With a growing curiosity, Edward notices that there is something slightly off about the sound of her breath and her gait. There is a heaviness to her motion, and the vague hint of both a giggle and a sigh, just barely contained.

When the knock finally comes, he is at the door between their rooms in an instant. The time away from her has made his hands long even more to touch her skin, and, uncharacteristically, he finds himself moving to take her straight into his arms.

It is then, with his nose buried in the softness of her hair, that he catches the scent of alcohol on her breath.

Sure enough, when she pulls back from his embrace to stare up at him, it is with eyes that are just slightly glazed, her step wavering as she moves through the door and into his space.

Too loudly, she asks, "Did you have a good night? Without me?"

And there is an immediate sound of warning in his brain that something is wrong.

Shaking his head, confused, Edward asks, "What do you mean?"

Bella does not answer as she walks forward. Instead of heading to the keyboard as is their wont, she moves immediately toward his bed, and the sight of her, sprawled out on crisp, white sheets, staggers him.

Playing intently with the bright paper band around her wrist from the bar, she murmurs, "So who did you hang out with instead?"

In that moment, a glint of understanding hangs just at the edge of Edward's vision, but he is so accustomed to hearing the answers in his head that this one eludes him.

So he questions. "Instead? Who?" Sitting on the edge of the bed beside her, Edward recoils from the cold feeling rising up inside him as she shifts further away. He cannot hide how the distance between their bodies hurts him. "Bella, I don't understand."

Proving the depths of his lack of comprehension, he reaches again, trying with fading hopes to touch her hand, only to have it snatched away.

And he wonders if he was wrong.

If all his plans were _wrong. _

In the past two weeks, she has made no effort to really _touch_ him, and watching her pull away from him, he realizes that while he knows that she is _his _desired mate, he has no idea if he is hers.

"Bella?"

Even he can hear the pain in his voice. The longing and the need.

"Was it another girl? Was that why you told me to leave?"

Bella's voice is small, but in his head it could not be louder.

And suddenly everything is clear.

"No, of course not. I told you."

"A boy?"

"No!" Edward is shocked. Bewildered.

He has not been bewildered in so, so long.

Words bubble up inside of him like the venom he is always swallowing down, and for a moment he considers risking everything. He sees exactly how freeing it would be for her to know everything about him. That he has never loved or touched before. That he still does not know if he can.

That he has killed and that he cannot risk the chance of killing her.

But that he wants to touch her. God, how he wants her.

His stone lips part. "Bella, I - I'm - "

Only a century of knowing what everyone around him is thinking cripples him.

Edward has no idea what to say.

But Bella does. "You hold my hand sometimes, and I think maybe you want me that way," she begins, the anguished look on her face destroying him. "But then you're distant and then you're telling me you need to do things and that I should go away. The techs all think you're just another actor and that soon you'll be done with me. It'll be Matthew all over again." Bella sits, cutting off her tirade mid-stream. "Is that what I am to you?"

"No. I - Please, let me - "

But she lets him do nothing, and there are no more words he can expel. There is no air.

Instead, there is only lightness. Warmth. Fluttering. A rush of venom and the softest pressure imaginable as her arms surround his neck, her pulse rough against his frozen skin and her lips on his.

_Her lips are on his._

And he is frozen.

There is too much pleasure, too much warmth and blood and too many years of unmet need. He wants to hold her body to his stone one and press himself into her. To touch and kiss and love.

_She's kissing him._

The reality of this finally hits him, his erection swelling and his fists curling. In a rush of held-in air, the most tortured groan imaginable escapes his lips, and he does not know if he can restrain himself any longer.

He wants to feed. He wants to love and make love and to finally satisfy this consuming need.

He wants to _mate_.

He wants _his_ mate.

Steeling himself, he resolves. He decides finally, achingly to kiss.

But he is only kissing warm, fragrant air.

"I'm sorry. Oh, God, I'm so sorry."

There is the sound of steps, the sight of a wavering girl. There is the slamming of a door.

And then somehow, again, Edward Masen is alone.


	6. The Mirror

Everything Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer. Everything Phantom of the Opera belongs to Andrew Lloyd Weber, Charles Hart and Gaston Leroux.

Thanks to antiaol, bmango and hunterhunting for their help, commas and kind words, and eternal gratitude to JAustenLover and Durameter for their generous donation to FGB:Eclipse.

* * *

**Chapter 6:**** The Mirror**

Bella Swan hears the door slam behind her, a thin slat of wood standing between all the hopes she had not dared to speak aloud and herself. Alone in the dark again, she has no one to blame _but_ herself.

But that doesn't make the rejection hurt any less.

Curling up on a bed she has not slept on in more than a week, Bella finally gives herself over to sobs. The alcohol that had emboldened her is gone, a sticky chill flowing painfully through her veins, and her stomach roils.

She is such a terrible, terrible fool.

Why did she kiss him?

The memory of frozen, unyielding lips against her own provokes another jag of painful, consuming crying, and she cannot even bring herself to care that the sound is sure to be seeping through the walls. She is certain that while Edward Masen can hear her, he is probably incapable of feeling.

That his heart is as cold and set as his jaw was against the onslaught of her lips.

But then the silence is broken by a knock.

In all this time, he has never, ever knocked.

He has _never_ come to her.

She sobs an answer out, but still the plea for entry continues. She tells him to go away and not to bother her anymore. She whimpers at him to forget her as she has always been forgotten before.

And it is at that point that the knocking finally stops.

Because in that moment, the hinges come off the door.

"What?" Bella sits up straight in the bed, only to find Edward, pale and shaking and standing there in the space between their rooms, looking like something entirely inhuman. And yet also looking like a man.

And then he is there. Right there.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs, his breath washing over her face, and there are lips. There is a kiss so ragged and full of need that it staggers her, but she succumbs to it instantly. Threading her fingers through the hair she has desperately longed to touch, Bella pulls and holds, bringing herself closer until there is no space between their bodies.

She cannot handle any space at all.

"I thought - " she whispers, but she is silenced by another kiss.

"I want you," he rasps. "More than anything. You're the only one. The only thing..." Cold lips drift across her jaw and to her throat, and for a moment she remembers the last time he was so close. She remembers how he touched her just like so and whispered a warning.

How he flew.

Holding on tightly, she tries to fly with him this time, pulling his mouth back to hers. As her lips open beneath his, she shivers at the cool motion of his tongue, and there is a part of her that knows this is not right.

She knows no one can be this cold.

And yet she has never felt so warm.

"Please," she whispers, tasting his lips and trying to push forward into his mouth, but at every motion she is blocked. Within the confines of her own mouth, their tongues touch and slide, and she feels a rush of pleasure as cool hands roam and explore. There is something shaky about his touch, and it soothes her to feel his hesitancy and worry. With a twinge, she remembers how other men have always taken her body greedily, their confidence belying their experience and their intent.

And she wants to be something savored.

So long, she has dreamed of being adored.

Trembling more deeply now, Edward pulls away from her lips to kiss her cheek and ear and throat. His head shakes, and he groans as her hand comes to rest on his hip. "I don't know if I can. I - _Bella_..." At the feeling of her hand brushing his erection, he seems to melt, and she repeats the motion, only to be rewarded by a renewed fire in his freezing breath.

He moans, "I want … so much … I want but I don't …"

"Just let me touch you," she whispers.

An even louder sound falls out of his lungs, something deep and nearly primal. "Yes. Please. But while … if … " Edward's voice breaks, and he buries his face against her shoulder. "I can't … I don't know if I can … God, I want to touch you, Bella, but I don't ..."

Her heart falls, but she thinks she understands; he not the first man she's met to find the female body unappealing for anything but fucking. A tender flash of disappointment settles in the bottom of her stomach, but she tries to push it away. Trailing kisses down his neck and jaw, she shushes him, saying in her own way that it's okay.

"Here," she murmurs. "Let me."

With gentle motions, she begins to undress him, spurred on by the deep sighs and groans he issues with every sweep of her fingertips over his skin.

And his _words_. God, his words.

"So warm. God, your touch, it's incredible."

"Too much. Too much … Not enough."

"Please, Bella. Please."

When he is finally fully bared before her, Bella pauses long enough to look at him. She finds an intense vulnerability to his nakedness that she has never seen in a man before, and with soft touches, she trails her fingertips from his closed eyes down his face and chest to the smooth, cold planes of his thighs.

"I've never," he whispers, and it sounds almost pained. "Never..."

"It's okay," she murmurs, trailing her hands back to where he is hard and straining.

But nothing could prepare her for the broken cry of pleasure that follows in her wake.

"So warm. Too much," he croaks, and then, "More," and, "Please."

"Is it good?" she asks, sweeping her closed hand up and down the shaft and twisting gently around.

She knows it's good. After all, this is what she does.

He nods and whimpers, and, if she is not mistaken, he actually _purrs_. At his side, his hands are clenched into the tightest fists, and while Bella wishes he would wrap his arms around her, to hold her while she makes him come, there is something in the sight of those hands - some warning.

"Never knew … God, yes … too good … Bella."

And then there is her name, again and again.

No one has ever said her name so ardently. Edward Masen knows this touch is _hers_.

At that moment, his eyes fly open, the soft gold of them nearly black, and Bella cannot help but suck in a hard breath. Still she strokes him, her eyes connected with his, and she knows.

She knows he _sees _her.

Even as he is about to come.

"Bella, I'm... I can't ..."

His eyes stay open the entire time as his body pulses, cool liquid coating her palm as it slides over his erection.

In the back of her mind, Bella knows that no one's semen is cool, but the thought is gone as Edward pulls her quickly back up his chest. In a sensation that is completely new, she feels her body held against his, the slick mass of his come smeared between them, but it is as if he simply has to have her in his arms.

"I had no idea," he mumbles as he kisses her again and again. "Nothing has ever … so perfect." He is speaking too quickly, and she is only catching snippets, but it scarcely matters.

No one has ever been so grateful or so enthralled.

But she is still taken by surprise when his hands move to the hem of her shirt.

"I thought you couldn't..." Bella does not mean to protest, but she is unaccustomed to reciprocation delivered with this kind of fervor.

"I have to … I need to," he murmurs as he shifts to kiss her stomach, following his hands as they move up her chest, pushing her shirt up and tugging the cup of her bra down. Cool lips surround her nipple, and she stiffens as a fresh wave of arousal blooms. "I need to touch you."

"But..."

"It's alright," he reassures, only he seems to be reassuring himself more than her. "I'm calm," he whispers with wonder. "So _calm_."

And at that she gives up. She gives in. With pleasure instead of shame, she lets him find all of her wanting, tender skin, lips rushing and her pulse thrumming.

"You have to show me. Please." A cool hand takes hers to the top of her sex, and with a confidence she did not know she had, she begins to move both their hands through soft hair and softer flesh. Touching. Rubbing. Searching.

"Like this," she whispers, placing one finger of his hand against her clit before pushing her own finger inside.

He shudders and moans, his other hand joining hers , and she feels a rush of pleasure at the gentle probing of his touch. "So soft," he breathes. "So warm." And then, as he replaces her finger with his own, he whispers, "I want to be inside you. I want to taste you."

And that's all it takes to make her body break.

She peaks. She screams. She _shatters._

"Oh, yes, please," he begs. "Let me see you, love. Let me see all of you."

And she does.

For the first time in her entire life, she does.

And when his raw, black eyes connect with hers, she knows that he sees everything.

…

The next morning, Bella wakes in a room that is warm and dark, her upper body draped over naked flesh that is hard and cool. Long fingers tangle in her hair, and she can hear a perfect voice quietly humming the lullaby that has always brought her peace.

"Edward?" she mumbles, and the arms around her squeeze her gently.

"Good morning."

The voice that answers her is so light and airy that she has to look up to be sure that it is him. Turning and placing her hand over the center of his chest, she takes in calm, gold eyes and a contented smile, and while on the surface, it is the same man she went to bed with last night, beneath it all, she feels this is another man entirely.

"Edward?" she asks again, only to have his smile slowly widen.

One of his hands comes up to entwine with hers, lifting it quickly from his sternum before he pulls her in bodily against him. With their lips nearly touching, he murmurs, "Who else?" Faster than she can react, he flips their bodies, hovering just above her, and she can feel his naked length against her thigh. Running his nose along her jaw, he kisses lightly at her skin. "Is there someone else you were expecting?"

"No," she chokes, but her eyes close in pleasure before she can continue to speak. His touch is so light, his fingers brushing so softly over her breast and hip. "You just seem …" She breaks off, shuddering at the sensation of cool pressure and of his hand between her legs.

"Seem what?" he murmurs against her ear. "Happy? I am. So happy I can scarcely tell you."

"Oh!" she gasps. Reaching for his body, she feels her own spine arching, need building in her sex with the tenderness of his touch. When she wraps her hand around his length, he convulses, and she is shocked with the force of his reaction.

Pulling back, he shakes his head. "Not yet, love. I want to take my time with you this morning."

And he does. Over and over, he brings her just to the edge of ecstasy, only to ease off and away. Caressing her inside and out, he takes the kind of care with her that she never imagined anyone would, and as she nears her peak, she is shocked to find her eyes damp with tears.

Edward slows his circling on her clit, but does not stop, worry and concern both clear on his face.

But then they are gone, his eyes widening.

"You're alright," he mumbles, inexplicable wonder in his voice as he stares at her and renews his assault on her body. "I know you are. You're fine."

She shakes her head. "So much more than fine." Closing her eyes, she smiles and surrenders to him, stealing his words, for she has none left of her own. "Just happy," she whispers as she twines her hands in his hair. "So happy."

Moments later, when he brings her to a brilliant, shimmering climax, she wonders how and when and in what way it will all go wrong.

Only it doesn't. Not yet.

After succumbing to the tender stroking of her hands over his flesh, Edward bathes and dresses her and helps her pack. Finally, under the awning in front of the hotel, he loads her things onto the bus before taking her face in his hands.

And then, in front of everyone, he kisses her.

…

A new town brings with it a new set of challenges, and Bella finds herself swept away with work from the moment the tour buses slow to a halt. She spends her evening at a new theatre, cleaning and preparing, unpacking and learning.

To her surprise, as she works, she finds herself tripping less, and more than once when it seems like someone is about to collide with her, they spot her just in time, nodding their heads in hello before continuing on.

And she wonders why that feels so strange.

Checking into the hotel that evening, she is about to slide her keycard into the slot, wondering if Edward will again have an adjoining room. She hopes he does, and she hopes he'll come for her, both tonight and all nights.

It's so strange for her to hope, but even after so many bad relationships and painful false starts, she has a feeling about Edward. Pressing her thighs together, she remembers how tenderly he touched her - how publicly he kissed her.

"What are you doing?"

The quiet, velvety voice surprises her, but it is entirely welcome. Bella tilts her head as cool lips begin to dance along her neck, and she feels the keycard being pulled from her grasp.

"Stay with me?" Edward entreats. "I don't want to have to wait, wondering if you'll knock. I want you in my arms."

It's too soon. She's knows it's too soon, but nothing in her life has felt so right.

"Yes," she consents. Melting into him, she murmurs, "All right."

...

A blissful week slides by in performances and repairs and the tender motion of hands over skin and ivory keys. There is music and talk and touch.

And there are silences.

So many simmering silences.

So many times, Bella feels questions bubble up toward her lips, but she never gives voice to them. Life has taught her that, if she is ever to be happy, there are things that it is better not to know, and she has a sense that Edward's life is full of these secret, dangerous things.

She does not ask him what he feels or why he grips her so tightly. Why his skin is hard and cold or why she never sees him eat; why they always stay inside; why whenever she wakes, naked in his arms, he never seems to be asleep.

She does not ask why his eyes shift from yellow to ochre to coal or why, when he comes, they shift back to the most brilliant, liquid gold. Why, when she puts her hands on his flesh he cannot hold her and why, after a week of kissing and touching, they have still not chosen to make love.

Or why, when he sings the songs his mother taught him, they are always so, so old.

Instead, she lets the silences linger, and to her surprise they do not fester. Instead, they become the rests in a piece of sheet music, poignant and necessary. They are the pauses for inhales and exhales without which she could not exist.

And she decides that, were it not for her silence, their life together could not exist as well.

One night, they sit together at the piano bench, they voices and hands entwined around the saddest, softest song. Her fingers still move clumsily through the most basic chords, but his are nimble and beautiful enough for the two of them. Over and over again, when she urges him to play alone, he tells her that he has performed enough piano solos for a dozen human lifetimes, and that he now wishes to learn the intricacies of the duet.

She humors him. She plays her part.

But her joy in the music is her joy in him.

Except when she sings.

After all this time and all this shame, Edward has taught her how to love to sing once more. And it shows.

Even she can hear the difference between her old voice, wild and untrained, timid and broken, and her new one. She has learned control, and she has learned to hear.

And when her voice is mixed with Edward's, every note she hears is beautiful.

The song that they are playing slowly comes to its close, and when it does, Edward turns to her, his eyes bright but darkening. In spite of her silent questions, she knows that this shining ochre is the color of lust, and that her lover is increasingly desperate to touch her. True to form, he brings a single finger to her temple, grazing every inch of her jaw before sliding down her neck to the edge of her shirt between her breasts.

"So beautiful," he breathes, leaning forward to kiss her. For a while, they lose each other in this other kind of dance of voices and lips. She feels the coiling of desire in the very bottom of her belly, radiating out into her sex and stroked to a burning fire by the motions of his hands along her body. While it is still too strange to think about, she has come to prefer a cold touch to a warm one, and just the slightest of caresses is enough to take her to an inferno.

And soon, the caresses are not light at all.

She is so caught up in the way that he is touching her that she does not notice when he suddenly shifts, dragging her raggedly to sit atop his thighs, her legs surrounding him. Bella breathes in sharply at the feel of him, hard and wanting beneath her, and instinctively she flexes her hips.

Edward hisses, holding her just a little too tightly. "Slowly, please."

Reeling at the novelty of this position, and wondering if it is a harbinger of more to come, she nods. His hands relax slightly, and she takes the room they give her, pushing so slowly against him and feeling the pleasure of being so close.

So close to making love.

So close to him.

As if he can sense her desire, he moans and stiffens, kissing at the skin across her throat and near her jaw. "I want you," he whispers. Again, he is excited, his speech too fast, and amidst the rush of sensation, she is hard-pressed to follow. "I've been trying … I think … I want … Can't …"

Bella shakes her head when the mumbled whispers turn to talk of what he cannot do, stopping his words with her lips. "I want you, too."

His throat rumbles, and there are those hands again, too tight and hard against her frame. Her whimper of pain is lost amidst his rambling as he drags her clothed sex against his erection. "Tonight? I don't know … I want … need ..."

"Let go," she finally manages, and his hands are off her in an instant, his eyes wide and horrified. She can feel him about to retreat; she can sense that power that she cannot name inside him that can take him to the other side of the room in an instant, but she refuses to let him go. "No," she whispers, moving his hands, one to the bench and one to her hip. "Just like this," she instructs him. "Lightly. Like this."

But in spite of all of her entreaties, Edward only further stiffens. Disappointed and uncertain, she tries to bring his face back to hers, but this time he will not be moved.

"It's OK," she whispers. "I'm fine - It's - "

"No," he whispers.

And his voice is cold.

Something inside her collapses, and when he pushes her from his lap, she lets him. She is crumbling as she echoes, emptily, "No?"

"No." It is a hiss - a panicked whisper as his eyes dart, terrified, to hers.

"What?"

He shushes her with a finger at her lips, but he is not looking at her.

He does not see her.

"Edward?"

He straightens, refusing to even touch her.

And then he says, so quietly, "We're not alone."


	7. The Point of No Return

Everything Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer. Everything Phantom of the Opera belongs to Andrew Lloyd Weber, Charles Hart and Gaston Leroux.

Thanks to antiaol, bmango and hunterhunting for their help, commas and kind words, and eternal gratitude to JAustenLover and Durameter for their generous donation to FGB:Eclipse.

* * *

**Chapter 7****:**** The Point of No Return**

In a century of lonely wandering, Edward Masen has encountered exactly nine others of his kind. Besides Esme and Carlisle, they have all been nomads, bloodthirsty monsters bent on nothing but the hunt and - in the case of the few mated pairs that he has met - sex.

It is impossible to mistake the presence of another vampire. There is the scent, of course, dark and sweet, but there is also the unique tenor of minds that move with a speed and complexity that humans cannot match.

When Edward catches the first wisp of a thought, distinct and bright against the dim mutterings of so many other hotel guests, he is already on a painful edge. His mind is twisting in so many directions, a powerful lust welling up inside of him and the tantalizing, terrifying possibility of finally consummating that lust so close at hand.

And then it's not.

In a flash, his monstrous hands are curled in fists beside his hips, Bella's voice ringing in his ears, imploring him to let her go, and there is_ pain_ there. He has _hurt_ her.

So many times, he has sworn that he would never, ever hurt her.

The broken, spiraling circle of his thoughts is set to spin out of control when, once again, there is that strange texture to the background noise inside his head, a single bright, menacing thread, and some part of him knows that he must heed. That this is important.

Only the most important thing in his life is still perched on his lap, her voice imploring, and he can hear inside of it a hurt that runs so much deeper than the pressure of stone hands on pliant flesh. "No!" she insists, trying to move him.

But hers is not the only voice.

_Edward Masen. Room 235._

His name inside the approaching thought sparks through Edward's mind. He stiffens, everything a jumble, and he needs to focus.

He needs to _think_.

He can't think. Not with Bella so close.

So close...

Struggling for clarity amidst the raging tumult of his mind, Edward finds himself batting at air and at the voices pressing in on him, maddening human ones and this new one, threatening and - he realizes with a freezing rush across his spine - thirsty.

There is a vampire in this hotel. Looking for him.

And that vampire is _thirsty._

And Bella is here.

Swiftly spiraling into a full panic, Edward bristles. Everything is suddenly sharp and focused, the need to protect his mate welling up inside him with a ferocity he had never fully understood before, every muscle tense and his thoughts a live wire of violence and overwhelming, paralyzing love. Something at the back of his mind is still aware enough, though, to know that he must act with care. Bending all his remaining will to moving with deliberate precision, he shifts Bella off of his lap, dimly aware that she is speaking but unable to comprehend.

Inside that foreign mind, Edward can see elevator doors opening, a corridor disappearing beneath strides that are just a little too long, and the scent of something wet and tantalizing assails him violently.

"No!" Edward hisses at the feeling of a burning, scorched throat assaulting him from half a hallway away.

"No?"

Bella's echoing whisper is so pained. So lost. But he cannot take the time to comfort her. Not now. Shushing his beloved with a callousness he knows that he will later regret, Edward directs all of his attention to the approaching threat, his body already bending to a crouch, his arm coming up reflexively, prepared to strike.

With despair, he breathes the only warning he can give.

"We're not alone."

And then there is a knock.

Somehow, Edward had not been expecting the visitor to knock. There is so much malice lying just beneath the audible line of the approaching thoughts that Edward had been prepared for an attack. He can hear the thoughts slowly shifting, assembling themselves into more linear paths, and in and amongst them, Edward sees his own pale face, plucked from a photograph.

A photograph from nearly half a century ago.

The knock repeats itself, and Edward knows that the other vampire's patience is running short. Steeling himself, fighting the bristling, violent urges sitting uncomfortably inside his skin, Edward holds up a single hand in warning to Bella, imploring her silently to be still.

Standing, he crosses the room, scarcely breathing on the way to the door, where he finally places his hand on the knob and pulls.

And then there is only the sight of ashen flesh and burning, crimson eyes.

The vampire at the door is not one that Edward has encountered before. With a darting gaze and a quickening breath, Edward sizes the intruder up, taking in his smaller build and the way his nose is turned just ever so slightly up. While his clothes are not overly conspicuous, Edward notes that they are oddly formal, the coat resembling more of a cloak, all the fabrics very fine and very dark.

Edward is not the only one taking stock, though.

In the other vampire's mind, Edward sees his own frame and his own golden eyes, a light of recognition glowing, and there is satisfaction there as well. Edward nearly tilts backward at the speed with which the visitor's thoughts are flying, images of cold, stone walls and dark rooms and blood, another pale face and another set of crimson eyes staring straight through him. _Seeing._

There is fear. But now, too, there is also pride.

"Edward Masen," the vampire says smugly. Edward feels a sympathetic pang of thirst rip through his throat, watching, ready to strike, as the other's nostrils flare and widen. Baring razor teeth, pale lips part into a dangerous smile. "Why it smells delicious in here. Did you order room service?"

Registering something slightly off about the question, Edward effects an aura of calm, but inside he is desperately sifting through the fits and starts of thoughts that continue to surround him. Reversing quickly, he mentally pauses, staring into the room through the other vampire's stolen eyes, seeing both his own distressed image and Bella's, but there is something wrong.

Bella, while there, is also _not_.

Edward's head tilts up sharply, his eyes once more meeting the crimson ones before him, watching in rapt fascination and with the faintest bubble of hope beginning to spread through his chest as the other's gaze once more sweeps through the room.

And once more, those crimson eyes pass straight over Bella's form, the edges of it lost in a sort of static Edward has seen in other humans' minds before, but never so clearly.

With a shiver, he realizes that, to the other vampire, It is as if she is not there.

Unable to process this information but grasping to it desperately, knowing that it may be the key to surviving this encounter with his life and love intact, Edward comes to himself, shaking his head and forcing a smile.

"Forgive me," he says, his body still blocking the door. "You seem to have my name, but I do not have yours."

A hundred lifetimes worth of names pass through the vampire's mind, but after a moment's thought, he closes in on just one, and Edward can tell it is his real one. "Demetri," he says, sneering. "An … ambassador, if you will. For the Volturi."

Memories swirl through Edward's consciousness in rapid progression, a twisted tangle of Carlisle's warnings and Demetri's recollections. There are those deep red eyes again, set in a face that, in spite of immortality, shows all the signs of age, a voice seeping through the edges of the vampire's thoughts.

_Perhaps it's time we paid this Edward Masen a visit. Let him know he's being watched before he grows too bold._

Edward staggers backwards, and the other vampire seizes the advantage, striding forward and into the room. "You'll excuse me if I invite myself in. The things we need to discuss … they're not fit for prying ears."

Just barely resisting the compelling urge to glance back over his shoulder at Bella, Edward yields, feigning grace as the door swings closed behind his visitor. Demetri's gaze still passes over the image of the beautiful, vulnerable girl at the piano, but then again, the vampire doesn't seem to be noticing much. In the memories of similar encounters that keep flitting through the other immortal's mind, Edward sees that this visit is routine. That Demetri's confidence is supreme.

Staring at the insipid painting hanging over Edward's bed, his back turned, Demetri slips off a pair of black leather gloves, snapping them lightly as he begins to run through a litany that has clearly been rehearsed.

"Did you know that an Edward Masen was born in Chicago in 1901? Curious case, really. The poor boy disappeared in an outbreak of the flu, of all wretched things. No certificate of death, though." Demetri opens his hand to the air, mimicking an explosion as he whispers, "Poof! Vanished."

With a deep fear beginning to untangle in his abdomen, Edward watches in horror at the vampire pulls an envelope from the inside of his cloak. Withdrawing a grainy, sepia-toned photograph of two adults and gangly boy, Demetri laughs, dropping the image onto the bed.

Edward's eyes open wide, staggering backward slightly at the rush of images welling up within him, warmth and touch and a feeling of home and love. His mother's face is there in all of them.

Somehow, somewhere deep within his soul, he still bears the memory of his mother's touch.

But he is drawn from that memory of warmth by a shifting coolness in the air - a settling of the overwhelming scent of blood. His attention is drawn back to his Bella, and from her changing scent alone, he can tell that she's gone pale.

As if the ominous presence of an agent of the Volturi in her room were not unsettling enough, Edward now finds himself contending, too, with a burning dread, knowing that he may well be baring more than flesh to his mate. The war he has been waging within himself about what is and what is not safe for her to know has now been taken from his hands.

And it is possible that, by the end of the night, she may know everything.

It is possible that she may run.

Keeping the view of the room that Demetri sees in his mind, Edward finally hazards a single glance back at Bella, only to find her just as pale and frightened as he'd thought. Ruefully wishing that, just this once, he could hear her mind, he flashes her a look of pleading, although he does not know exactly what it is he's asking for.

For her to stay.

For her not to be afraid.

For her to see that, no matter what he is, he loves her. Desperately.

Shockingly enough, his quick glance and his silent prayers bring a little color back to her cheeks, and as their eyes meet, she nods slightly. Doing his best to hope and trust that she understands, Edward turns back to face the other figure in the room, moving just in time to meet his scarlet stare.

"A pity isn't it?" Demetri laments. "To be plucked from _life_ so young? Who knows what Edward Masen could have been." Another photograph emerges from the folio, still depicting Edward but showing him on a stage this time. With a flick of the vampire's wrist, the image floats silently to fall on the bed. "A performer maybe? A musician? Like Edward Cullen?" One picture after another appears and falls. "Edward Evenson? Edward Anthony? Edward Smith?

"Those boys played such tiny stages, though. Such small productions. Such a waste of such gifts, wasn't it? With talent like that? All those reviews in two-bit newspapers." Several clippings unfurl, spinning in the air before settling on top of the growing pile. "Not like you, Edward. Edward _Masen_. Not like the Phantom."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Edward lies, finally finding his voice. In Demetri's mind, the accusation is clear, but there is something unsettled about it, too. Sifting through the vampire's memories, Edward hears a hint of caution and a warning to stay just this side of interference.

This is a warning.

Nothing more.

Prepared to deny everything, Edward opens his mouth once more, but finds the words still-born on his tongue as one last accusation rises to the top of the other vampire's mind. There is disbelief surrounding it, but the seriousness of the new information Demetri has gleaned in his fact-finding mission is damning.

As if Edward were not thoroughly damned already.

_He wouldn't,_ Demetri thinks. _He couldn't possibly. Not with a human..._

Edward's cast-mates' voices rise to the forefront of the other vampire's mind, unguarded conversations and idle gossip. Stories of Edward and a stage tech. Lurid whispers and implications. Late-night rendezvouses and a passionate affair.

Edward's head snaps up, his still heart seizing up inside his chest. "She has nothing to do with it."

The words are out of Edward's mouth before he can comprehend what he has said, but the spark of recognition and the jolt of surprise in Demetri's mind is impossible to deny.

_How did he … No … Not gifted as well..._

Demetri's thoughts dart to a visceral memory of a stone hand upon his own, ancient red eyes and weathered lips and a glint of understanding.

And for the first time since Carlisle's amber eyes met his own newborn crimson ones, Edward can see that someone _knows_.

The vampire reels but recovers quickly, his razor teeth exposed as a brilliant smile appears.

_Oh, Aro will be pleased, indeed._

Moving quickly to veil his thoughts, Demetri continues on his initial line of questioning, but there is victory at the edges of all his internal musings. "She?" he asks. "The girl? Then you admit - "

He is cut off by an indignant gasp from the corner of the room, and Edward's eyes drift closed, his shoulders slumping in defeat.

Through all of this - all the implications of Edward's century of unlife, all the psuedonyms and lies - Bella has kept her silence. But not anymore.

Edward watches the scene unfold through Demetri's eyes, the vampire's perfect vision shifting jerkily, the haze of static around Bella's beautiful face suddenly resolving into an image of a woman. She is all red cheeks and angry pout, the hands that have pressed warmth and life into Edward's frozen chest curled into angry fists.

At the sight of red eyes now falling on her form, Bella's blush intensifies, but her spine only straightens, her posture uncompromising. Ruefully, Edward thinks to himself that he would be proud of her for sitting up straight instead of shrinking the way she was once so prone to, were her timing not so terrible.

And so dangerous.

Her voice, when it comes, is self-conscious but strong. "You don't have to talk about me as if I'm not here." She shifts uncomfortably, and Edward can feel Demetri's thirst, his eyes opening to see the other vampire's nostrils flare. Quieter now, Bella says, "I'm right _here_."

"Yes," the vampire says, licking his lips. "Yes, you are."

Edward's body is coiled now, all his attention once more focused on protecting his life. His _mate_. Instinctively, he expects Demetri to strike, and he is surprised when he feels the vampire check himself and reign his desires in. Crimson eyes flash back to Edward's, the sneer growing wider.

"Oh, good show, Edward. Very good show." While Demetri's voice is all mirth and haughtiness, his thoughts are deadly serious.

_My master will know of this, mind reader, whether I choose to reveal it to him or not. Do not think he will be uninterested in your talents. _Demetri's eyes dart to Bella's form and then back to Edward. _And hers._

The last words give Edward pause, but he cannot imagine what to do with them. Not right now. Deciding that there is no point in subterfuge, he responds to Demetri's mental warning with a subtle nod, whispering too quietly for Bella to hear, "I understand."

Demetri's smile grows darker. "I knew you would." His thoughts begin to skip ahead to the logistics of his journey home, and again there is that old and menacing face, the vivid memory of papery skin against a stone palm bright in Demetri's mind. To Bella he says, "Lovely to meet you," before turning to Edward and gesturing at the pile of photographs still lying on the bed. "I'll leave you with these, and with a single bit of advice. If I know my master, this is not the last you'll hear of us." His mind drifts to a mental picture of Bella, pale and cold, a rush of scorching thirst burning through his throat.

But beside that memory is a distasteful flickering of fear, a memory of the sound it makes when stone bodies are broken.

His eyes burning into Edward's, Demetri speaks a few final words. "When we inevitably return, I strongly suggest that we not find her … alive."

Choices fork out in the other vampire's mind, eliciting a terrifying, alluring mixture of thirst and lust and want.

Edward wants both outcomes.

He wants Bella's blood. He wants it to coat his throat and flood his veins.

He wants _Bella._ He wants her immortal and strong.

He wants her always.

Scarcely even paying attention, Edward dimly watches Demetri don his gloves and stride to the door.

_Until next time, mind reader._

As the door closes behind the vampire, Edward echoes quietly, "Until next time."

And then he turns, dread in every corner of his silent heart, uncertain what he will find when he looks once more upon his mate. Upon his _life_.

Upon the one person in the world who has the power to truly destroy him.

Or to remake him anew as a creature born not of loss but of love.

Finally daring to look at her, Edward finds Bella sitting up straight, her deep brown eyes wide, but less with fear than with wonder. Far from the revulsion that he had half expected, there is only a sparkling flame of curiosity and the brilliant glint that means she has very nearly come to an understanding.

And his breath stops at the thought that she might _understand_ him.

Levelly, quietly, she says, pointing at the bed, "Those pictures are all of you."

Edward swallows, then nods, and she shivers, her eyes closing for just a moment as her fingertips rise to her lush, red lips.

"Edward," she all but whispers.

"Yes, love."

Opening her eyes, she stares at him as if everything hangs on the next words that he will speak.

Only he doesn't know if she knows how true that is.

"Edward, what did he mean when he said they shouldn't find me _alive_?"

Edward's knees threaten to collapse though they are solid and stone. Two steps take him to the bed, sinking to sit just at its edge, his head falling into his hands.

His monstrous hands.

Only they're a lover's hands now, too.

He looks up to find her closer than she had been, her body just inches from his, beside him on the bed. "Edward?"

With a deep inhale, Edward Masen opens his mouth and his heart. Quietly, he whispers, "It means that there is more than one way to die."

Edward's chest nearly cracks when his beloved not only does not run but smiles. Her hand all but burns through him as it settles in the center of his sternum, and for the first time in all these weeks, he does not move it. He does not keep her from feeling the silent rhythm of his chest.

"You died," she whispers.

He nods. "But not the way that most people do."

Resting his hand tentatively over hers and reveling at the _warmth_, Edward shakes his head and finally confesses the damning, lamentable truth of his unlife. "No."

"I know," Bella breathes.

"Are you afraid?"

She's not. He can tell from her pulse that she is not, and he is almost curling up, the brilliance of the love and joy that is beginning to dare to exist within him too hot.

He doesn't know how to handle so much happiness.

"No." Her breath is searing and perfect across his face. Pressing her lips to his just once, she closes her eyes. And she smiles. "No, I'm not."

Taking his hands to her hair, Edward stares at the love of his existence for just a moment more before crashing his mouth against hers. She is so brave and so beautiful, so tender and so strong.

She knows what he is, and she is not afraid.

And if she is unafraid, then he will be, too.

So many emotions swirl up in him with an intensity that is almost overwhelming, and he pours all of them into a fevered, passionate kiss. There is relief and desire, joy and adoration, but there is a sharp twinge of anxiety there, too. All of his nervousness from the tense encounter with the other vampire is still driving too much tension into his hands, and he knows that they are verging on gripping too tightly, but he can't hold back.

He can't hold anything back.

"I need you," he whispers. "I need - "

He needs so much. He needs to take her and claim her and make her his. Still slightly crazed with the instinct to protect her and keep her safe, he presses his tongue into the wet heat of her mouth, swallowing down venom and a century of feeling undeserving of love or touch. He can feel the tender edge of possessiveness, too, the unspoken threat that Demetri had issued, the implication that the Volturi could be interested in her as well, making him feel unhinged.

"Please," he begs, stealing her breath and letting it warm him.

He feels so warm.

Bella's body is pliant and willing as she melts against him, whispering simply, "Yes," as he lies them both down on the bed, his hands moving along her curves. With a shudder of desire, he slowly returns their bodies to the delicious, terrifying position in which they had found themselves before the unwelcome interruption, grasping her hip and then her thigh as he lifts her to hover above him.

When the heat of her body presses against his erection, it is just as maddening and addicting as it was the first time, and more bravely now, he allows his hips to buck up slightly into hers. The moan that falls from her mouth stokes the flame within his body into an inferno, and he can feel his control slipping.

He doesn't want to control himself.

He _wants._

He wants so much.

"I want you," he groans, pressing her more firmly against him at the same time that he begins to slide their bodies up the bed. Supine beneath her, he lets his head fall back as she drags herself up and down the aching length of him.

"I want you, too," she gasps, inhaling jerkily as he feels the head of his need slide against the place where she is always wanting.

With barely checked strength, near drunk on the fact that he may demonstrate his prowess more freely now, Edward rips her clothes from her body and from his own, letting scraps of fabric fall around them in a slow rain of blue and rose and black, until before him, there is only flesh.

There is so much flesh.

Bella's eyes are wide and awe-struck at the ferocity of his movements, but just when he begins to fear that he has exposed his monstrosity too fully, she groans and settles back over him, sliding heat and slickness over the part of him that is cold and hard.

It is all-consuming, the pleasure that courses through him. Even after she has touched him so many times - even though he had thought himself finally somewhat inured against the dizzying, impossible levels of rapture she can bring him to - this is new.

This is wet and warm and intimate in a way that he has never experienced before.

This is everything he has ever wanted in a hundred lonely, desperate years.

"Bella," he groans. The sound is pained. Tortured, even. Beyond the way her scent scorches his throat when she is so close, there is now too the feeling of her pulse between her legs, the warmth of her breath, the way the heady, slick scent of her arousal permeates the air and makes him faint with need. Too fast for her to catch anything, he whispers to himself that he can love and make love and touch and hold.

He can be with her.

He has to.

He will crumble to ash if he does not, burned and parched without the fluid sweetness of her sex to quench him.

He will become nothing if he does not become one with her.

"Yes," she whispers again. "I want this. I want you. Always."

Edward clenches his eyes shut against the excruciating need to press forward. To finally lose himself in female flesh.

To become what he was always meant to be.

Her mate.

Before he knows what has happened, he finds himself above her, his erection poised just at the opening to her body, his limbs trembling.

"I've never - " his whispers, agonized.

He wants to be good.

He doesn't want to disappoint her.

He just _wants._

"I need - please - " he keens, and then her hand is there, almost as hot as the damp flesh he can already feel parting, so ready to accept him.

"Here, baby," Bella whispers, and it is her soft touch against his cheek that finally brings him back to himself. "Look at me."

He does. His heart exploding with the magnitude of this love, his eyes pricking with the impossible desire to weep, he stares down at her face. At the woman that he loves.

Too quietly for her to hear, he breathes, "I love you," and then he is pushing forward.

He is falling. Submerged. Flesh and parting and her body taking him in and it is so _hot_.

He is inside his love.

And at one hundred sixteen years old, he is not a virgin anymore.

"So much … too much," he gasps, but it is not enough.

It will never, ever be enough.

Her answering breath is so quiet, and he is startled back into something like consciousness as his eyes dart to hers, terrified that he will have already done something wrong. When he finally meets her gaze, though, it only intensifies the crippling, perfect pleasure of being consumed by her, inside her.

Because she is looking at him with love.

So, so much love.

"Bella," he breathes as he closes his eyes and drops his face against the mattress. Her hand on his hip begins to guide him, begging him to move, and when he finally has the power to, he does. With the slowest, most tortuously decadent, exquisite movement, Edward pulls his hips back, but after only a few inches, he finds himself falling forward once again until he is surrounded by her warmth.

He is meant to be here.

He has always, always been meant to be here.

"Edward," Bella pants, but it is an exclamation not of pain or discomfort but of pleasure.

His body is giving hers pleasure.

"More," she murmurs, her legs wrapping around him, and he is staggered to be so surrounded.

Still babbling well below his breath, Edward answers her call, just barely holding onto enough of his senses beneath the onslaught of heat and sensation to listen to her body's cues. He can feel her wet flesh beckoning him forward, her soft hands pushing him back. He can feel the tenderness of the nerves just beneath his pubic bone and the way she rocks up into him.

He can feel fluttering and liquid and soft suction and her moans.

From inside her, he can feel her breathe.

"Please," she whispers, and he lets out a broken, sighing moan.

"Help me," he implores, and she does. She helps him find her pleasure by placing his hand at just the place where she has asked him to touch her before. Groaning and holding his breath, he rubs and strokes, touches and loves.

Just when he thinks his own body may give out, stretched so tightly between the iron pinions of his shattering, desperate need and his tenuous restraint, Bella's body shudders beneath him, gasping too quickly for air in a way he knows. With her lip between her teeth and her shining eyes so focused on his face, she tenses, and he begs her silently to come.

When she finally does climax, her body arching up and her mouth opening in a perfect circle, her breath panting out his name, Edward can feel it in every atom of his being.

Everything - every wasted year and guilt-ridden moment, every lonely performance and night spent in hopeless longing - burns away to nothing inside the clutching tremors with which she grips his body.

Whispering and screaming right along with her, Edward gives in to all the love and touch he has always wanted, making love to her in earnest in a way he had never imagined he would be able to. As he strokes more quickly now, thrusting rapidly in and out of her body, she murmurs his name and quiet words of beseeching, asking for his pleasure and for him to let go.

For the first time, he wraps her in his arms completely while in the throes of ecstacy.

And then achingly, devastatingly, he comes.

He lets go.

With the first mind-numbing pulse, Edward feels as if his body is being pulled inside out, a force unlike anything he has ever known flaying him. His voice is lost to the relentless calling of her name, his hands too tight, and he knows he is not in control.

He is so far past control.

So far past it that he can't quite hear the warning signs. The gasp and the grunt that are not born of pleasure.

The crack.

As the last blissful, delirious stream shoots from his body, he finally comes back to himself, shuddering once more inside of his beloved, inhaling deeply.

And it is only then that he smells it.

Tears.

Blood.

_Bella._

Shaking for another reason entirely now, Edward jerks backward and out of her, his entire being screaming at him what he already knows.

But still it takes him a moment to summon the will to look.

To open his eyes to the broken body of his lover.

His Bella.

His everything.

Too tortured to scream and too inhuman to sob, Edward finally opens his eyes to find exactly what he had known he would.

Pain.

In Bella's expression, there is so, so much pain.

"Edward," she rasps, but he can hear the blood in her lungs with every breath.

He can see bruises.

Ribs.

Horrified, Edward tastes venom. He tastes his whole hand as he stuffs it into his mouth.

He tastes bitterness and solitude and his own terrible guilt.

He tastes the empty expanse of another hundred years - a hundred thousand lonely, unbearable years.

He collapses.

"No."

The breath leaves his body so quickly that he barely registers the word as his own.

But it is.

"No," he groans again, but there is something else there now, too.

Some knowledge.

She is his _mate_.

And he knows that he is her mate, too.

That she is dying.

But that there is more than one way for her to.

Scarcely knowing what he is doing, Edward Masen pulls the shattered skeleton of his one, aching love into his arms, cradling her close.

And for the first time in decades, he hears the silent words his creator unknowingly spoke to him in the first moments of this unlife.

Edward, for his part, speaks them aloud.

"I'm sorry," he chokes, his eyes clenching shut.

And then, without hesitation, he brings his mouth, dripping, to her throat.

And bites.


	8. Track Down This Murderer

Sooo ... apparently some of you thought last week's chapter was a cliffy. So here's an extra one to make up for the suspense.

Everything Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer. Everything Phantom of the Opera belongs to Andrew Lloyd Weber, Charles Hart and Gaston Leroux.

Thanks to antiaol, bmango and hunterhunting for their help, commas and kind words, and eternal gratitude to JAustenLover and Durameter for their generous donation to FGB:Eclipse.

* * *

**Chapter ****8:**** Track Down This Murderer**

After decades of abstinence, the taste of human blood is almost too rich, too decadent. Too perfect.

Forgetting himself for just a moment, Edward Masen feels the monster within him roar, clawing at his chest and demanding more. It always wants more.

But he wants less.

Haunted by the voices of the people he has killed and by the gurgling, dying sounds still falling from his lover's lips, Edward swallows just once before sliding his tongue across the wound to seal his venom in her body. With each tender inch of flesh he tears, biting the insides of her elbows and knees and thighs and wrists, he whispers, "I'm sorry."

He is so, so sorry.

And yet he cannot quite bring himself to regret this.

In the moments after the last rough incision of his teeth into her body, a multitude of things begin to happen at once. There is the sound of her slowing, sluggish heart, the sound of the hotel telephone ringing.

And the sound of Bella's first, piercing scream.

"Shh," he begs. "Please." Already, he can hear the thoughts of people in the rooms around him, the immediate fear and the call to action at the terrible, terrible noise. Although it pains him, Edward places his hand over her mouth, stifling her and apologizing.

He has so much to apologize for.

With everything in him, he wants to flee, but the insistent ringing of the telephone gives him pause.

In one hundred and sixteen years, no one has ever called him.

Still muffling Bella's screams and still swearing that he is sorry, Edward lunges for the telephone, picking it up and managing a choked, broken, "Hello?"

"Edward," the person answers. The sharp, feminine voice is unfamiliar, and yet he cannot mistake its musicality.

Its immortality.

"Who - "

"There's no time. You have to go. Now. I'm with Carlisle, and we're only a few hours away."

"Carlisle? How - " Edward's thoughts are swimming madly, but there's no time.

He needs more time.

"He'll accept you with open arms, Edward. Run north toward the river, then go west. Stay away from highways and people. Hurry."

"I don't - "

"And let her hear you. She'll know you when she hears you."

"But who - how - "

"Alice," the voice answers. "I'm Alice. Now go."

The line goes dead, and Edward stares at it. The silent voices in the other rooms are still growing, Bella's cries more muted now but still no less terrifying as they rip through the air. One by one, thoughts turn from wonder into action, and when he hears the first mind resolve to call for help, Edward knows that he must move.

Pausing only to grab the photograph of his mother, his wallet and whatever clothes he can fit into a duffel, Edward pulls his mate against his body and, still naked, the two of them crash through the window. No sooner than his feet touch ground, Edward is running, hoping only that his speed is enough in this dark and bloody night to avoid detection.

As the night air begins to whip by them, Bella's screams grow louder, and each one is torture to his ears. He knows from experience that it is nothing like the agony that must be consuming her, but that does not make it hurt any less.

It is crippling to know that his mate is in pain.

As the depth of Bella's suffering sinks through his bones, the only reassurance Edward has is the constancy of her dying heart. Remembering well the three days of terrible agony Carlisle experienced as Esme died and changed, Edward consoles himself with the knowledge that, as wrong as this feels, it is right. That the change is happening as it should.

That she'll be all right.

Thinking only of escape, Edward tries to give himself over to the physical release of running, but there is no stopping the whirring circles of his mind, and before long his mind turns to his destination.

To his long-forsaken first friend.

To Alice.

Uncertain what to make of her message, Edward considers his alternatives, but few of them amount to more than three days of agony in a cave or a barn. Inexorably, even as his mind as racing, his feet take him north.

Toward the river.

Toward the closest thing to a family he has known in a century.

As the ground yields before him, he cannot help but wonder what they will think of him. Of what he has done.

Of Bella.

Can they ever forgive him for wanting this unlife for his beloved?

_Can she? _

From the increasingly tortured nature of her cries, he finds himself doubting. In every scenario he can imagine for how this will all work out, there is always her face, ashen and even more beautiful than usual, but with her soft brown eyes gone accusing and crimson.

He is so afraid.

Still, he runs.

As promised, after a couple of hours, his path meets the river, and he forges it without thought. Much to his surprise, as the cold water splashes over Bella's body, her screams ease slightly, the tension in her face yielding. Desperate, he stops on the other side, placing the few possessions he has absconded with on the bank before striding back into the current. As gently as he can, her sets Bella down, only to have her cling to him.

"It's all right," he murmurs, kissing her cheek and simultaneously cringing and rejoicing in the way her skin is already less soft beneath his lips. "It's all right."

Then he really looks at her body - at the skin that has already closed over the places where he squeezed too hard, at the bruises that are fading before they could even form. At the blood.

"Let me wash you," he says quietly. As he speaks, he finds that his voice is like the water - that it soothes her, and between the two, she is almost quiet now, her eyes still clenched tightly in pain, but it is less. He knows it is.

Alice's words drift through his mind. _Let her hear you._

So he does.

As he brings his hands to her stained skin, Edward is a rambling, stuttering mess, speaking quickly but always speaking. Letting her hear him. Bathing and caring for her, he tries to find words for all the things he wants to say, but it is impossible. There is no way to explain that she has changed him as permanently as his venom is changing her. There is no explanation for how desperately he loves and needs her or for how much he regrets.

And so, lacking words, he sings.

He sings all the songs they played together, his heart breaking at the memory of quiet nights spent at a keyboard with the woman he loves - at how he found more solace in her company than he ever did amongst countless, enraptured audiences.

When her body is clean, he lifts her from the water and back onto the bank, sifting through the bag for something with which to dress her. Drying her the best he can with a ball of his own shirts, he somehow manages to get her clothed, bothering only to pull a pair of pants over his own damp, naked skin.

And then they are off again, heading west.

The entire time, his voice never rests, and while her agony is once more clear on her face and in her choking breath, it is no longer all consuming.

And neither is Edward's hopelessness.

…

Finally, just when Edward begins to fear that he may have gone wrong somehow or that the voice over the phone was lying, he catches a scent that is dark and sweet. In and amongst the other flavors, he catches traces that he recognizes.

Carlisle.

Esme.

With renewed strength, holding tightly to Bella's rigid form, he runs with unbridled speed in the direction of the other vampires. Forest gives way to fields and then to cool, green grass, sparkling in the moonlight. And then there is a house.

Struck with the longing he'd suppressed for so long, Edward's chest aches at the sight of it, warm and inviting. Lit from inside, it is just the style of house that Esme had always favored, and Edward is surprised to find that her name no longer arouses the same bitter jealousy and resentment that he had once harbored.

Rather, there is only a sense of home. Companionship.

Family.

Still, as he approaches the door, he cannot help but feel some of his insecurities returning to him. While Carlisle had always been a kind and generous soul, he had revered life above all else, and Edward feels the memories of his crimes returning to him as he closes the final few yards.

Suddenly, before he can even set foot on the wide, stone path, the door opens, revealing yet more of the soft glow seeping from every window.

Revealing his creator.

"Carlisle," Edward murmurs.

_Son. My son. You're home. _

Edward is nearly incapacitated by the strength of the emotion coursing through him. In less time than it would take to speak, he takes in all the feelings of absence and heartache and relief that Carlisle is processing. In Carlisle's mind, Edward sees his own amber eyes.

He sees acceptance.

He sees love.

Falling to his knees just before the open door, Edward pulls Bella's body even tighter against his chest, sobbing without tears for all the decades he has spent, alone and outcast. When cold, stone arms close around him, it only makes the sobs more violent.

"I'm sorry," Edward breathes, only he no longer even knows what he is sorry for.

_It's al__l __right, son. It's al__l __right._

Floored by the depths of forgiveness in Carlisle's compassionate, golden eyes, Edward shudders, only to feel Bella shake even harder within his arms. "Bella," he says, pulling back slightly from his creator's embrace and fixing his eyes on her tense, pained face.

Through Carlisle's vision, Edward observes the same strange phenomenon of Bella's form fuzzing in and out of sight, the edges blurry. Only this time, when Carlisle finally _sees_ her, her image is still not completely clear.

_Just like Alice said_, Carlisle thinks, but then his attention comes back to Edward. _This way. We've made a room. _

Edward follows gratefully, so relieved to have someone with which to share his anxiety and his distress. Asking nothing of him - not even why he is humming - Carlisle leads Edward forward and into the house. Edward is well aware of the other vampires that are present by their scents, but he does not pause to question or look for them. Instead he simply follows his creator up a narrow staircase and finally into a large, white room banked with glass.

And housing a piano.

_We always kept an extra room for you. In all of our houses. All these years. _

Edward's gratitude is too much to explain in words, one more dry, aching sob wracking his frame as he sets Bella down on the bed that occupies the far wall.

Mentally, Carlisle chuckles. _The bed is new, though. Esme and I questioned it, but Alice insisted._

Alice.

Everything always seems to come back to Alice.

"Tell me," Edward breathes as he lies down beside his Bella, surrounding her in his arms in just the way that Carlisle did his Esme so many years before. "Tell me everything."

In fits and starts, Carlisle does. Somehow sensing that Edward is not yet ready to tell his story, Carlisle silently explains the occurrences of the past eighty years. With neither judgment nor malice, he tells how they waited for him for as long as they could, moving on only when suspicions began to grow too clear amongst the people of the town. He speaks of other cities and other towns, homes and hospitals and the regret that had always filled him that he could not find a way for Edward to be happy with this life.

Edward pauses in his quiet humming long enough to ask, "Did you ever turn anyone else?"

_No._ There is a pause in Carlisle's thoughts, an image of a woman, broken but still beautiful, the memory of her face accompanied by a wordless pang of regret._ I considered it once. But to have seen how you hated me for it - for this life … _

"I don't," Edward interrupts. Closing his eyes and pressing his lips to the no-longer pliant cheek of his beloved, he thinks back on these long and lonely years.

And then on the past few weeks.

On happiness.

Pulling Bella even closer to his chest, Edward whispers, "I don't hate it. Not any more." Swallowing down all of his regret, he continues, "And I could never hate you, Carlisle."

His creator's thoughts are mute for a few long minutes, the silence deep but for the endless melody of Edward's song and Bella's breath.

_Nor I you._

…

As dawn breaks through the panes of glass, Carlisle continues his story, explaining how he and Esme came home one day some fifty years ago to the scents of other vampires lurking around their home. At this point in the story, there are light footsteps on the stairs and then a sweet scent of another immortal.

"Hello, Edward."

He recognizes the voice he'd heard over the phone, and lifting his face from Bella's neck, he smiles. At the entryway into the room, there is a small female with short dark hair and soft, golden eyes. "Alice, I presume."

"None other."

In her thoughts, he sees the strangest tumble, translucent visions mixing with reality, and he gasps as he sees the two intermingle and collide, an image of Bella shuddering passing through Alice's mind just instants before he feels his lover stirring in his arms.

"You - " he starts, but he can already hear his words in Alice's mind. _You see the future. _

"Yes," she answers, beaming.

"That's how you found us. Me and Bella."

She smirks. "And how I knew your room would need a bed this time. I knew you wouldn't be alone."

Edward realizes in that instant that there is more than just the hazy quality of premonition that makes Alice's vision different from that of Carlisle.

"You can see her," Edward gasps, gazing from Alice's eyes to Bella's closed ones.

"Sometimes." Alice frowns. "Sometimes not. She's getting fuzzier now, honestly." At Edward's dismay, Alice moves quickly to interject. "She'll be fine, though. That much is clear."

A barrage of mental images rush through Edward's mind, and in all of them Bella wakes, perfect and immortal, sitting and then jumping.

And then kissing.

Hovering over him.

Naked.

Glorious.

"Bella," Edward gasps, but then the visions come quickly to a halt, Alice's mind shifting, embarrassed.

"Oops," she says, backing away as Edward's head snaps up.

"She - "

Alice holds up a hand. "I don't want to say too much."

Edward's head is shaking. "But she's … She'll …" He trails off, unable to voice his greatest hope. Finally, he breathes, "She'll forgive me."

"Oh, sweetie." Suddenly Alice is beside him, her hand on his shoulder, and he sighs at how good it feels to be touched like this.

Innocently.

Affectionately.

Even if the touch comes from someone he scarcely knows.

When she speaks again, Alice's voice is quiet. Reassuring. Kind.

"Oh, Edward. As if she could ever blame you for loving her enough to want to keep her."

…

Time passes slowly, but Edward is relieved to be able to spend these agonizing, torturous hours with others who, at least in some way, understand. Carlisle concludes his tale of how Alice and her mate, Jasper, inserted themselves into his and Esme's lives, immediately becoming indispensable, treasured members of the family. In addition to Alice's gift of foresight, he explains Jasper's empathic abilities, his thoughts growing ever more warm as he explains the easy companionship that they have all found together.

Eventually, Esme and Jasper join them. The only time Edward ever releases Bella's still-burning body is when Esme appears, nervous and uncertain at the top of the stairs. As he wraps his creator's mate in his arms, Edward is shocked to find her thoughts swirling with guilt and apology, still feeling terrible for her perceived role in driving him away.

"No, Esme," he insists. "It was me. Just me."

And for the first time in so many decades of loneliness, he realizes that it's true.

That he was only an outcast because he, himself, chose to run.

As the sun begins to rise on the third day, Edward finally begins his own story. With aching regret, he speaks of those maddening, blood-soaked years, and then finally of his realization that there was another way - that there had been all along. He recounts years with nothing but music for company and of his endless pursuit of redemption.

Finally, he tells them of Bella.

Of love and of joy.

Of the threat from the Volturi.

And of how he came to be here.

"I don't know how it happened," he confesses, his voice cracking. "One minute we were," ... _making love_ ... "together, and the next, she was broken. But I couldn't let her die. I couldn't. I can't - I can't live without her. I won't."

Once more, there is a hand on his shoulder.

But it is Esme's this time, and her face and mind hold nothing but love and forgiveness. For him and for Carlisle.

"Of course, you couldn't," she says quietly. "None of us could be without our mates. Ever."

He hears their thoughts, all quiet with silent agreement.

Resting his head once more against Bella's neck, focusing on the images Alice had shown him, Edward sighs out a single, shuddering breath.

"Thank you," he whispers. "All of you. Thank you."

…

Come twilight on the third day, Edward hears the rapid quickening of Bella's heart, and his own heart lurches in sympathy. Much too clearly, he remembers this as one of the most excruciating moments of his transformation, and he switches finally, lovingly to the lullaby he has sung to her so many times in their weeks as both lovers and companions.

Her face is tense, her quiet cries more urgent, and more and more they include his name.

"I'm here," he croaks, verging on a sob. "I'm here."

How he hopes that here is where she wants him to be.

It is a small relief when her hand reaches up, clutching to him with a force she has never before been able to muster. Her hands are strong.

So strong.

In Carlisle's mind, Edward hears that the time is near, and he feels his nerves increase as his creator alerts the others and begins to remove them from the room.

_Good luck, son._

Jasper's normally quiet mind is suddenly loud with concern, and Edward knows that he can scarcely see Bella at all now, even when he is focusing intently on the space left within the cradle of Edward's arms. Bella's growing invisibility panics him, militarily and otherwise, and he cannot help but voice his worry. "Shouldn't someone stay? She's a newborn. They're wild. Unpredictable. Add in her gift and - "

Alice laughs and shoos her mate out into the hallway. "She'll be wild alright," she teases, mentally winking at Edward. "But nothing he can't handle. Trust me."

_We won't be far_, she thinks. _If you need anything, we'll leave Jasper's cell on the dresser._ Another set of images drifts into her mind before she can block them out, all pale skin and torn sheets, and Edward's body cannot help but respond. She shifts her thoughts quickly, but then adds, _Oh, and don't worry about the vase. Esme won't care._

Edward is just about to voice his confusion, but the other vampires are already gone, their laughter loud in the growing night beyond the house as they break into a run.

And then it is just him and Bella.

Edward Masen and his mate.

And all he can do is wait.


	9. Stranger Than You Dream It

Everything Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer. Everything Phantom of the Opera belongs to Andrew Lloyd Weber, Charles Hart and Gaston Leroux.

Thanks to antiaol, bmango and hunterhunting for their help, commas and kind words, and eternal gratitude to JAustenLover and Durameter for their generous donation to FGB:Eclipse.

* * *

**Chapter 9: Stranger Than You Dream It**

Bella Swan is ash. There can be nothing left of her, not with the way her every cell and fiber is burning. For hours - weeks - _years_, she burns. Incapable of remembering anything before the all-consuming flame, she wonders if the life she'd known had all been a mirage, a strange oasis in the desert of suffering to which she is now confined.

She wonders if there ever was a Bella Swan. A Mike Newton or a Matthew Clay.

An Edward Masen.

And it is at that thought that she screams.

"I'm here. I'm here." Dim, musical words pierce the red veil of fire, and she lunges for them, desperate for any solace but fearing that there is none.

That for all of eternity there will only be flame.

But then, there is stone.

And she clings to it.

Finally finding something with which to anchor herself, Bella tries to reach beyond the agony of her own dying, burning flesh, but finds she has barely enough strength to hold on. Her eyes refuse to open, the lids fused from the heat, and in her nose and mouth there is only ash and the acrid scent of the flame.

Yet still, there is also more.

There are voices and soft notes that she is sure she _knows._ There is warmth beneath her hands, shoulders that are firm within her grip and the sweetest kisses from perfect, full lips.

There is sweetness.

She knows that sweetness.

"Edward," she breathes, whimpering. Clinging.

"I'm here."

And that knowledge alone will have to sustain her.

…

Bella's first sign that something has changed is the delicious coolness of a lack of pain. For the first time since she made love with Edward, she feels something _good_ spread through her body, the flames flickering, and she can only imagine that there is nothing left of her for them to consume.

So slowly, she becomes aware of the hard yet pliable nature of the flesh beneath her fingertips, the exact cadence of the soft melody playing soothingly in her ears.

She knows that melody.

She _knows_ it.

At just the moment when she thinks she might grasp it, though, the inferno finally reaches its final, terrifying peak, the entirety of her attention claimed by the desperate flame inside her heart. Each beat is a struggle, and they are coming so quickly now. Too quickly.

On some level, she knows that she is dying.

But there are words.

Just beyond her consciousness she can hear them.

_There is more than one way to die._

"Oh!" she gasps, and somehow she knows it is the very last gasp of her short, quiet life.

With her final exhale, she feels the tremulous, racing thudding of her heart pause. It beats again, the fire so hot she cannot imagine anything surviving it.

And then it beats no more.

And she has survived.

"Bella?"

Soft, warm fingers brush across her face, and she can now feel the whole length of her body pressed against another, her torso held in arms that are strong but which mold to her frame.

"Bella? Are you alright, love?" The voice is so beautiful it almost hurts her silent, still heart, and yet it is also so pained. She hears in it a rich multitude of tones and hues, restraint and grief.

And fear. There is fear there, too.

"Please, Bella. Please."

Finally, with more ease than she would have imagined just a few short moments earlier, Bella opens her eyes.

And as she does, she remembers ash. She remembers burning.

But she knows that she has never burned _this_ way before.

Not when she saw him for the first time with human eyes. Not when she touched his naked flesh. Not when they sang.

Those experiences all pale in comparison - those previous emotions all coalescing into one brilliant, shimmering feeling so powerful she doesn't know how her body can stand its force.

Because in this moment, Bella Swan knows that she has never, ever felt so much love.

"Edward," she gasps. Her eyes, while open, are hot and dry, scorched with venomous tears she cannot shed, and yet she blinks them all the same, too stunned by the beauty of the man before her to believe it. In one rough gasp, she draws in the air she needs to speak, feeling a scorching pain tear through her throat, but she does not care.

She wants to _kill_. To find something hot and sweet to slake her thirst.

But she wants him more.

"Edward," she moans again, and then she is upon him, her body suddenly moving through air to lie atop his, and there is only the warm relief of what she will later come to recall as her first immortal kiss.

She cannot get enough of his kiss.

Talking more quickly than she had ever known she could, she is a rush of words, a desire to know and to be known flooding her, love replacing every molecule of fire, and she is not ash.

She is a living, brilliant creature, born of love.

Made to love.

Made to love _him_.

"I was so scared," she breathes. "I was lost. Fire." And then, "I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you."

"Bella," he gasps, and she can feel his hands surround her wrists, stopping her.

Rejection is hot in her lungs, and she is about to spring back. To run. To flee.

But then his hands are on her face, the soft, full mouth that she was reborn solely to kiss spreading into the widest, most spectacular smile.

"Oh, Bella," he murmurs, lifting his neck to press his smiling, beautiful lips to hers. "Bella, I love you." There are more kisses, more soft touches of his hands on her shimmering skin. And then, "Forever," and, "I get to keep you. Forever and ever and ever."

…

"You don't have to breathe," Edward pants when she tries to pull away, pressing her body down into the bed and attacking her lips with a level of daring he has never approached before. "Not any more."

For hours now, they have been talking and kissing, feeling and moving, each coming to better know who and what Bella is now. The word 'vampire' has finally passed through Edward's soft, full lips, confirming what Bella knew without knowing it. He has spoken of venom and blood and of death - of _her _death.

She is dead.

But she has never felt more alive.

The feeling of his hand on her shoulder, pushing her down against the mattress, awakens instincts inside of Bella. Before she knows what she is doing, she is pushing back, flipping them and drawing out a moan from Edward's throat that is tortured and yet lustful.

"What else don't I have to do anymore?" she grunts, pinning him with her hips and feeling his desire flare harder beneath her. In all their talking, they have approached this sort of intimacy repeatedly, but each time they have lapsed back into conversation and explanation. _So many explanations._ Only now, she does not know how much more she can take, the new, low burn inside of her crying out for contact. The shock of pleasure rushing through her body takes her by surprise as she leans into him more fully, the intensity of the pressure against her sex overwhelming. The air blooms with a scent that is earthy and wild, and she watches, rapt, as Edward's nostrils flare, his body rolling hers once more to the side as he thrusts against her, gently at first and then more roughly as the most lustful noises escape his throat.

"Stop," he groans against her throat. "You don't have to ever, ever stop."

As if she could.

Desperate to feel him closer, wanting skin and flesh and sex in a way she has never known before, she wraps her hand around his neck until he grunts in pain and begs for more. "You're really real," he says, his voice broken, his fingers denting her skin but failing to tear it as he holds her so tightly. "My Bella. My _mate_."

The final word he says with such reverence, such finally fulfilled longing. It makes something inside of her ache, emotions too vivid and bright in the newness of everything.

"Is that what this is?" she breathes. "Is that why this feels … " She cannot continue, too desperate to be kissing him again, her hands frantic at his clothes, needing his body the way she used to need air.

"Like too much? And never enough?" he chokes out in response, his breath faltering as she rips his pants.

And his erection is no longer cold against her skin.

Tearing at her own clothes, Bella tries to find words for how it feels to _need_ the way she does. "Like I could _break_ you. Like my hands want inside your skin."

Edward winces hard at the word 'break,' his whole body going rigid. She is surprised by the sudden change and rolls him over without meaning to when the resistance in his arms evaporates.

"What - Edward - "

His hands are suddenly tender on her skin.

"I thought I broke you," he gasps, his amber eyes closing and his throat bobbing. "I thought - "

Her memories from before the fire are hazy, but there are impressions there. Images of his hands in fists and his pleasure restrained inside muscles coiled so tightly against any sort of satisfaction.

Memories of _pain_. Of dying.

But then of strong arms. Of her lover saving her.

"Never," she whispers against his ear.

His arms move so quickly to surround her, clasping her to his naked chest. "I can't ever hurt you again."

Her lips glide more slowly now but with no less intensity across his skin. "Just love me," she says. "Just let me - "

"Anything. Anything."

The need that has propelled them into this swirling sea of longing and touch swells higher. Wrestling and kissing and loving, two vampires learn their bodies together - one as a new creature, unsure of every move; the other as ancient, weathered stone that has somehow come to life again.

She whispers, "Harder," and he answers.

She digs too deeply, and he begs her to break him. To _take _him.

As it builds, the passion between them grows too great, and soon they are a tangled mess of naked limbs, frantic on the floor. With strength she still doesn't know to contain, Bella pushes to roll atop him, his body poised finally, finally to enter her, when her hand strikes the ground beside his bed, snapping a floorboard and sending a tremor through the room.

Behind them, there is a crash, and Bella instinctively whips around, but she is caught short by Edward's laugh and by the solid pressure of his hand on her cheek.

"Don't worry, love," he says, smiling again. And then, in the same motion that he pulls her body down to surround his needy flesh, he breathes, "Esme won't mind."

Bella's mind is too consumed, her body too warm and lustful and _full_ to question.

She cannot question.

She can only feel.

"Never," she groans, lifting her hips to slam down onto him once more, making another set of floorboards crack. She has had sex and she has fucked and once - _one time_ - she even made love.

But it has never, ever been like this.

"I know," Edward says, an answer to what she cannot say. From below her, he moves increasingly freely, his hips coming up to meet hers as he slides achingly from deep within her to hold, just barely consumed with his tip at her entrance, until it is too unbearable to be separated by even that much.

"Is this how it always is? For your kind?"

"For _our_ kind," he corrects as he topples them once more, his knees bending until he kneels with her thighs atop his legs, and she feels so open . "For mates. For forever."

"Yes," she breathes, pulling him harder and deeper until she can truly take no more.

In an undulating, infinite wave of pleasure that makes any distant memories of sex seem like another act altogether, Bella's new, stone body shatters, her mouth and hands digging deeply into Edward's flesh until he, too, is crying out in release, pulsing within her for long enough that she wonders if they have ascended. If this solid world has liquified into their bodies' sacred kiss.

She doesn't care.

If they have, she will take it.

And she will hold onto it with everything she has.

Forever.

…

Bella loses track of how many times they make love or of how much time has gone by. They move fluidly, sinuously, as if they have been lovers all their lives, and she laughs the moment she realizes that, at least on some level, for her, that is true.

Finally, at a point when her human body would have long since succumbed to sleep or some other, milder form of physical exhaustion, she begins to feel the aching need for his body abate. It does not fully disappear, but there is now room for other sensations beneath the haze of desire.

Sensations like the burning in her throat.

She lifts her hand to touch the very center of the flame at just the moment Edward moves to take the tip of her breast between his teeth. A little grunt of discomfort passes through her lungs, immediately drawing his attention, a flash of understanding passing quickly through golden eyes. Slowly, he releases her flesh and kisses his way up her body, pressing his lips to the back of her palm before removing it to lick softly at the hollow of her throat.

"You haven't fed," he murmurs.

She shakes her head. "I'm not hungry, just - "

"Thirsty," he supplies. Continuing upward, he kisses all along her neck, almost as if in apology, sighing when he reaches her lips. "I've neglected you." There is no guilt to the statement, simply stated as it is. "Too busy ravaging you."

"No argument here," she gasps, reaching to close her hand around him once more.

His nose rubs hers as he shakes his head and laughs. "After," he breathes.

Across the room, there is a buzzing noise and a beep, and Bella twists too quickly to try to find the source. Edward chuckles and gives her one last kiss before rising and striding naked across the room, seeming more comfortable with his own nudity than he ever has before. Pressing a few buttons on the phone he finds atop the one dresser that's still standing, he smiles and rakes his fingers through his hair before returning to the side of the bed to offer Bella his hand.

"Come," he says, helping her up. Though her legs, by all rights, should be jello, she finds them to be stable and strong, her knees only shaking slightly at the hungry look on her lover's face. He checks himself quickly after allowing but a moment to look her up and down. "Tragedy though it is, we should get you dressed."

"Why on earth would we do that?" Bella asks, pulling his mouth back down to hers.

But she knows.

She can tell in the way that the words tear and burn.

Edward kisses her back with fervor before pulling back breathlessly and shooting her a knowing smirk. "Because, love. Were I not already dead, I'd be dying to watch you hunt."

…

"Again?" Bella groans, but her hand is already coming up to wipe the blood from her lover's lips as he descends to her body, licking up what she has spilled. The original clothes that they had borrowed have been left in tatters elsewhere in the forest, discarded in haste after her first kill. Edward had attacked her with as much vigor as he had the other elk, slamming her against a tree that shuddered despite its size. Sucking red, hot life from each others' lips, they'd made love almost violently, blood flowing through crystalline veins, fueling a lust even more powerful than the one they had acted on just hours before.

The actual act of drinking blood had come more naturally to Bella than she would ever have imagined, and as Edward slides down her crimson-spattered body, she can feel the raw power now coiling so tightly in her arms and legs. Too enthusiastically, she reaches for him. It is not the first time she has heard the low crack of stone skin giving beneath her fingers, but it is still almost as painful for her as she imagines it must be for him.

"Sorry," she says, but he will have none of her efforts to withdraw her hands from his skin.

"Touch me," he begs before pressing his mouth to hers. "I'm fine."

"Don't want to hurt you."

"You can't. _Touch_ me."

At the feeling of his arousal dragging, hard and heavy against her thigh, she loses the battle for restraint, rolling him to his back and mimicking his previous actions, licking the few stray drops of blood from his chin and chest, a fire blooming across her throat and through her sex. "How did you do this?" she murmurs. "When I was _made_ of blood."

"By doing a lot of _this_." He gestures at the forest and at the fresh kills, drained and lying lifeless on the ground.

"When you could hurt me..." she whispers, caressing the closing crack at his shoulder.

With the utmost care, he slides his hands in whisper-soft motions across her chest, staring up at her with so much tenderness it makes her ache. "By touching like this." For another minute, he ghosts fingertips over sensitive flesh with reverence, but then he pauses, smiling brilliantly. "When really I wanted to touch like _this_." Finally, his hands catch her hips and bring them back up to his, pulling her down onto him in one swift stroke, filling her and making her cry out.

She bites down on his neck, pulling a rough, desirous grunt from him as she lets him guide her motions up and down, wet sliding and hard flesh and the ground tearing beneath them.

As she begins to circle higher and higher, she lets the question that has been at the back of her mind all day slip through.

"Would you change it?" she whispers quietly against his ear.

"_Oh_," he moans as she takes him in again, his unnecessary breaths growing ragged. "Changing you?"

"Yes."

"Only the how," he murmurs, gasping with pleasure, his back arching. "I would have asked you."

The heat coiling in her belly is becoming unbearable, and with her last breath, she groans, "I would have said yes."

His kiss feels bruising even to her immutable lips as he pulls her against him, thrusting hard before each calls out the other's name, her body clenching, and she can feel him spilling, warm and fluid inside her.

And she wouldn't change a thing.

Not a single thing.

…

The sun is rising by the time the two have sated their twin lusts. Water dripping from glistening skin, they bathe and kiss and love in a lake, finally pulling apart to step out into the sunlight. The warmth of the brilliant golden light has never felt so intense before, and Bella basks in it, closing her eyes and letting it wash over her.

Only Edward's quiet sigh of contentment brings her back to attention, and for the first time, she stares at his naked body in the light. She gasps to find the same brilliant gleam radiating from his body as from hers, his entire person eclipsed by such radiance that she can scarcely breathe.

"How?" she whispers, stepping forward just enough to be able to place her hand over his silent heart.

"How what?"

"How did you ever think you were a monster?"

His eyes darken slightly, and he gives a pained smile as he looks away. In their conversations, he has already spoken of his years spent wandering, seeking satisfaction in murder and finding only pain. Bella knows the names of the shadows in his eyes, but she still does not understand.

"If I did that - if I tasted human blood - would you think the same of me?"

His brow crinkles in confusion. "I don't - "

"Would you think I was a monster?"

"I can't - I can't even imagine."

She slides her hand over his brilliant, beautiful skin to hold his neck, pulling him down into a soft kiss before staring into his eyes. "Neither can I, love." Their lips meet again. "Neither can I."

…

Some time later, clean and dry, they make their way back through the forest to the place where they first shed their clothes. At the base of a tree, Edward locates the small bag he'd carried with them as they'd left, smiling softly as he retrieves fresh garments for them to wear. Bella glances at him suspiciously, warmth blooming inside her chest at the sight of his sly, shy happiness.

"Alice," he offers by way of explanation as he draws fabric up her satiated limbs, pausing just for a moment to press a kiss to the top of her sex before finishing the strangely intimate act of dressing her. She returns the favor in a similar fashion, darting her eyes up to his burning ones as she presses her lips to the persistent stiffness of his erection, but his hand beneath her chin pulls her back up to her feet before she can taste him.

Hand in hand, they slowly make their way back to the house, and as they do, she asks him to tell her everything. About Alice. About everyone. In his careful words about a strange, pale woman with eyes full of futures and visions, Bella can hear his restraint. She does not understand it until he continues on, explaining about Alice's empathic mate.

About his own gifts.

His never-silent mind and the twisted web of thoughts that forces him to see everyone too plainly. Everyone but her.

"Are all vampires … gifted?" she asks, her mouth dry.

The question is there, but she does not give voice to it.

Not yet.

"Not all," Edward answers thoughtfully.

"Am I?"

He pauses, pulling her to him and stroking her hair. "We think so."

"You think?"

His eyes drift closed, and he takes in a handful of unnecessary breaths. There is something pained to his voice as he describes the edges of static he has seen in others' minds. The way her own solid, obvious body seemed to flicker throughout her change.

"But you see me?" The question is so quiet, just a thin movement of air through parted lips.

"Always," he breathes as he kisses her softly, staring into her eyes with a tenderness that still speaks to the silent pieces of her heart that had always ached for that kind of care. "But we won't know about everyone else until … until they see you."

"Or until they don't." The words hurt. They actually, physically hurt.

Bending to press his lips to her forehead, Edward grasps her and holds her tightly to his chest. And if she ever doubted that he was being truthful, the pained tremor to his throat dispels that fear. "Or until they don't," he echoes, swallowing hard, as if he needs to pause to find the strength to speak again. "But regardless, I promise we'll find a way."

For a little while longer, they hold each other, letting their fears be heard and soothed through the ghosting motions of hands and lips and through quiet, murmured words.

"Come," he finally says, kissing her one last time. "Let's get you home."

At the word 'home,' Bella feels something in her chest shift. For a moment, she thinks of the tiny apartment she inhabited before setting out on the road. Of the cold house she shared with her father. Of her mother's sunny rooms where Bella was always in the way.

There is a tiny shiver that shoots up from the base of her spine, thinking of the family she drifted away from so many years ago - some sliver of regret that she can't quite grasp or name.

Not with Edward so close.

He trails his fingers down her arm, and her mind snaps instantly from lonely rooms in sad houses to warmer ones full of laughter, to all the sterile, generic hotel rooms in which, quietly - too quietly for even her own beating heart to really process - she had fallen in love.

And then she thinks of a place. A single, steady place to call their own. And it makes her eyes burn.

"Home," she repeats, brushing a hand across her face, her eyes trained down.

Edward hesitates, but then just squeezes her hand.

There are no more words that need to be said.


	10. Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again

Everything Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer. Everything Phantom of the Opera belongs to Andrew Lloyd Weber, Charles Hart and Gaston Leroux.

Thanks to antiaol, bmango and hunterhunting for their help, commas and kind words, and eternal gratitude to JAustenLover and Durameter for their generous donation to FGB:Eclipse.

* * *

**Phantomward, Chapter 10: Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again**

Edward Masen sits before a piano, staring down at ivory keys with eyes that want to weep but which cannot.

He is naked.

In a century of unlife, he has never managed to become comfortable with his body, but apparently all creatures - even ones as old and cold as he is - can change.

And changed he has.

From the next room, he can hear the soft sounds of water falling over stone skin, the very musicality of it making his restless hands grow calm as he slides them across the keys. On some level, it is difficult to comprehend that only a day has passed since Bella woke - since his pleading whispers and fears all dissolved before the sight of crimson eyes.

Before those eyes looked back at him with a love as boundless as his own. Before his crystalline heart cracked open and was reborn.

His skin still feels the vivid pleasure of his lover's body pressed against it - the touch of crimson lips in their first hungry kiss, the shuddering ecstasy of pressing for the first time into firm, unbreakable flesh. There is something low and warm in the very center of his being now, some improbable joy that he had never imagined would ever be his.

He had never imagined something so perfect as the utter contentment of making love to the vampire his body was created for. Something so simple.

So unconflicted.

Through the open door, Edward hears the water slow to a trickle and then stop, and he cannot contain his smile as he pictures the soft, pink cotton of a towel sliding over Bella's now-shimmering skin. He can almost see the water dripping from rich, brown hair, a single drop sliding slowly between her breasts.

Sitting still, unmoving, he can feel his arousal growing. It is a strange thing to be so satiated and so satisfied and yet to still want more.

More.

He knows he will always want more.

But he knows, too, that he can wait. After a century of lonely waiting, Edward is a master of restraint.

And right now, there are other things he wants to do.

Behind him, there are the soft sounds of footfalls on wood, and Edward smiles, his muscles relaxing with every inch of distance that is closed between his lover's body and his own. Finally, there is a warm breath on his skin, a thin shudder of pleasure chasing its way down his spine, and then the lush sensation of lips at the top of his neck.

Quietly, he asks, "Play with me?"

Bella registers her willingness without words, moving to sit beside him. With a smile that is no less brilliant for its subtlety, he watches her raise her hands to rest on the piano; then, remembering the wrenching pain of his own first experience with such an instrument after his change, he cautions her quietly to be careful. She heeds the warning and settles her wrists against the wood with the softest motions.

Letting loose an exhale of relief, his entire being soothed by Bella's presence, Edward places his own pale fingers on the keys and forms the opening chord of a song they used to play together. He can feel her recognition in the way her body relaxes, her hands shifting as if testing their strength and remembering motions that had seemed so simple just a few short days ago. Longer and more elegant now, her fingers finally move to the proper keys, pressing gently.

They both can hear it when the next chord is accompanied by a thin, quiet crack, but Edward hides his cringe and simply smiles and plays on.

It could be worse, after all.

It could be so, so much worse.

Once they have found their rhythm, he opens his mouth and his lungs, letting notes and words form on his tongue before sending them forth to vibrate softly on the air. After another few bars, Bella's voice joins him, clear and beautiful, and for just one moment, Edward allows himself to feel the low pang of sorrow at the song's perfection, surprised to find that he misses the way she used to sing off-key.

But it is no matter.

He will not waste his eternity mourning the way things used to be.

Instead, he will bask in how they are, immersing himself fully in their new reality.

Together, naked on a piano bench, the two of them sing on.

Together, they fill the night with song.

…

Staring out into the darkness, Bella places her head on Edward's shoulder, her hands slipping from ivory keys to rest on even paler skin.

"What are you thinking?" he breathes as he picks out the notes of a distant memory of melody.

She shrugs and turns her face to press her lips against his neck. "Just how strange it is to not need to sleep."

"I miss it," he says quietly. "Resting. Dreaming."

"I feel like this is all a dream. A good one."

Edward swallows and closes his eyes, stilling his hand against the keys. It is almost too much to hope for - for his beloved to think of what, for so long, Edward has seen as an infinite, inescapable nightmare as a _good_ dream. It is even more to hope that she will still see it that way in another few days.

In a few years.

In a century.

Unable to contain the emotion rising up at him at the concept of still being mated a hundred years from now, he redirects his energy from playing the instrument before him to playing the planes of his lover's body. With a level of comfort that is still so unaccustomed to him, he pulls Bella's lips from his naked chest up to his mouth, kissing her with an unbridled passion, decades of restraint giving way to need.

He needs so much. So much reassurance from her physical presence at his side. So much pleasure from her touch.

Even as his own body is anticipating a deeper sort of pleasure, a soft bloom of scent wafts up to his nose, earthy and floral, and he lets loose a growl that feels like it has been lodged in his throat for a century. "Bella," he breathes, scraping her tongue with his teeth.

He needs to know that scent.

He needs to know it intimately.

Kissing his way down the slender column of her neck, he lowers himself down, twisting and sliding at the same time that he is opening her thighs until he is able to rest, kneeling on the floor between her legs. With reverence, he traces his lips and tongue over warm, stone flesh, sucking at her breast before tasting his way across her navel.

Finally, breathing deeply of pure womanly arousal, he presses a lush, open-mouthed kiss to the inside of her thigh where her flowing blood had once deterred him. It is a distraction no longer, the skin still and unmarred by a pulse. The reminder that she is truly his now, truly immortal and beyond the ability of even his own desperate hands to harm makes him groan, his tongue wanting nothing more than to learn and explore. To worship and to pleasure.

To taste.

Bella's throaty moans spur him on, the hand in his hair pulling him inexorably to the epicenter of desire, but at the same time, her voice speaks a different desire entirely.

A fear.

"You don't - " she begins, hesitation in each word.

Edward pays no heed. Bringing his thumbs to part soft, slick lips, he stares, entranced at her. "Yes," he growls. "Yes, I do." As his mouth finally meets her sacred flesh, his eyes close, his entire being consumed by the warm taste of love and sex. Faintly, he can even taste himself on her, the product of so many hours of love-making, and it only makes him wilder, more animal.

And as he begins to lose himself in loving her this way, he wonders how he ever denied himself this joy when she was human - how he ever summoned so much restraint to not consume her when she was still pulsing with life.

Undead though she may be, she is so _alive_ beneath his hands.

Gripping his hair, Bella scratches hard at his scalp, pulling him closer as she unleashes a gasp of pleasure, urging him on.

Higher.

Softer.

Harder.

Faster.

Sucking roughly on the slick sweetness of her clit, he pushes his fingers inside of her, curling them up in a way that made her scream when she was human. The cry she utters now is positively _inhuman, _and it fuels something so primal inside of him. Intent on nothing but her pleasure and her taste on his tongue, he pushes her higher and higher, begging with every stroke and every sucking motion of his lips for her to come. For her to let him devour the essence of her desire.

For her to rush, liquid and warm against his tongue.

"Edward!" she cries, the bench splintering beneath her, his neck screaming at the pressure of stone thighs squeezing, his untouched body almost rising to climax from just the taste of the warmth and need flowing unchecked into his mouth. Even as her pleasure crests, he chases her through it, sucking and licking, touching and probing, and it will never be enough.

He doesn't want it to be.

Another tremor tears through her, but already Bella's body is in motion. "Come here," she growls, and before he knows what she is doing, Edward finds himself on his back on the floor beneath the piano, her mouth on his and her sex pressed just against him, still contracting with the power of her climax. "No one," she babbles, kissing him roughly and raking nails up and down his chest. "No one has ever. I didn't - That was - "

"Perfect," he breathes, shuddering as she slides along him, not quite taking him inside but still surrounding him, pressing his body just to the place where he could be enveloped in her. Kissing her deeply and pulling at her hips, he tries to find words for the closest thing to a religious experience he has had in a century. "Forever. I could taste you forever and keep going. Nothing tastes like that. There are no words - "

"There are," she insists. "So many words."

And then, before he can react, the warmth of her sex is pulled away and he is left, glistening and wanting, and for one aching second, there is no part of their bodies that is touching.

He needs to _touch_ her.

But then he doesn't need anything.

As her lips touch to the tip of him, he doesn't need _anything._

Except for her to keep going.

"Bella," he groans, and he realizes with a broken, shattering exhale that he was right after all. That there are no words.

There is no possible way to describe the way it feels to be surrounded by her mouth.

"God. God, _please_. This - oh, Bella - " His throat closes with the pleasure of her throat opening, his body sliding as she lowers her head to take him in again and again. He is overwhelmed, rendered senseless by the sensation of her tongue swirling, lips gliding, venom and swallowing and teeth.

Edward _loves_ the feeling of her teeth.

"Oh," he moans. "I can't - I - "

Before the experience has begun, it is over, his body seizing in a fit of rapture, and the entire time, her mouth keeps moving, taking, and he gives her everything he has. Emptying violently in wave after wave of excruciating, inescapable pleasure, he lets his hand drift down to her hair.

He looks down into blood-red eyes.

And he closes his own, knowing that this is another kind of music their bodies were always intended to make.

...

Just before dawn, Edward traces his lips over her throat, his body stilling within hers and calm descending once more around the room in the wake of their love. As he moves to lie beside her, his head heavy over her silent heart, he lets the feeling of satisfaction and connection settle deeply into his very bones.

But the perfect ease of the moment does not last for long. Moments later, the blissful quiet in Edward's mind is pierced by a series of tentative, respectful voices.

_We're heading back._

_We can't wait to meet her._

Edward's posture stiffens, uncertainty cracking the low, warm contentment in which he has been basking since the moment Bella's eyes reopened beside him. Propping himself up on an elbow, he stares down at her with all the love and tenderness he can manage, feeling her understanding in her caress.

"They're coming back?"

"Yes."

Quick images, plucked from between the shutters of Alice's guarded visions surround him, making him nervous. In them all, the unfocused eyes of his companions skirt over Bella's form again and again, making him increasingly tense with every pass; while he still dares to hope that Bella's talent will not be so absolute as Alice foresaw, he has to face reality.

For reality will be facing them before long.

Running his fingertips along Bella's jaw, Edward bends down to kiss her lips, closing his eyes and silently praying that Bella will be seen. And that if she isn't, that she will be alright.

That she will not regret this life.

Especially if she is left alone with only him.

The voices in the distance grow louder, and with a deep sigh, Edward lifts his face from his beloved's.

"Must we?" she asks, caressing the bare flesh of his chest and sending another soft tremor of pleasure down his spine.

His lips brush hers one last time, his desire evident and unflagging against her hip, but still he withdraws. "We must."

They redress in silence. Jasper's clothes don't fit quite right, and Edward has still not completely reconciled himself to Esme's scent on Bella's skin, but this is the best they could do, having escaped with so little.

_Don't pout, Edward. Esme and I went shopping while you had your _alone time_. We'll have you both fixed up soon enough._

A sly smile betrays the thoughts passing through Edward's mind, and Bella notices.

"What's so funny?"

He closes Bella in a soft embrace and rests his chin on her head. "Let's just say that having Alice around is going to be interesting."

Bella lets him go with a single, strange look.

"Come on," he urges, and they descend the stairs arm in arm, emerging into the entryway just in time to watch the door swing open. Bella's nerves are clear in her posture alone, and Edward can feel his own spine stiffen in sympathy. Still, he does his best to be reassuring, caressing her side and holding her body against his protectively. His hopes fall as the other vampires reenter the house one by one, reality coinciding with prophecy.

They all greet him with a smile.

They all stare without focus at a shimmering patch of empty air.

In their minds, his arms look _empty_.

Bella cringes against his side, and he grips her more tightly. She has spoken of the feeling of invisibility and of the loneliness that accompanies it, and in her body language, he can feel all of those memories of being small and insignificant flaring.

_I'm sorry, Edward._ The increasingly distinct tenor of Alice's thoughts rises above the others. _I wasn't sure. Sometimes I can still see her in your future, but not in anyone else's. Not anymore. _

Edward nods solemnly, still reeling at the confirmation of what he had feared. Desperate, he searches their minds for any signs of the woman he can feel beneath his hands, but there is none.

With a sinking feeling, he realizes that they can't even smell her.

They can't hear her breathe.

Finally, Carlisle breaks the tense silence. "Edward." His eyes connect with Edward's and then drift uncertainly to the space beside him where his logic tells him Bella must be, but which his eyes will not allow him to see. Still, with a nod, he offers a simple greeting. "Bella."

Edward swallows hard and steels himself. "Bella, love. This is my sire. Carlisle. His mate, Esme." With his free hand, he indicates each of them in turn. "Their friends, Alice and Jasper."

"Your friends, now," Alice corrects him, and had he not already felt a warm wave of affection for the vampire, he certainly does now as she steps forward fearlessly. He watches with venom blurring his vision as she closes her eyes and opens her mind. The premonition she receives is even less substantial than most, but in it, future-Alice closes her arms around future-Bella's grateful form.

A second later, at least in Edward's sight, the premonition comes true, and he breathes a sigh of relief when Alice's mind registers the solidity of Bella's frame inside her grasp.

Bella shoots wide eyes up to Edward's, and he nods, smiling with as much encouragement as he can. When Bella closes her arms around Alice, too, it makes something soften in his chest - some notion that maybe, somehow, this will all be alright.

"I'm so happy you're here," Alice says, completely genuine in her praise, but even she falters slightly when she opens her eyes to see straight through the woman she can _feel_. Her gaze darts immediately up to Edward's, something apologetic to her face as she releases Bella from her embrace.

"Happy to meet you," Bella answers quietly.

Edward's stomach flops, his throat lurching with an instinct to be sick.

No one hears Bella's voice.

Choking slightly, he squeezes his mate's hand as supportively as he can. "She says she's glad to meet you, too."

The moment Bella registers that he is translating for her, her whole face falls, and Edward aches for her.

He aches, too, to know that this is all his fault.

That she would still be _someone _had he not been so selfish as to love her.

To touch her.

Pulling her against him when it seems like she might fall, he murmurs over and over, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

She shakes her head and wraps her arms around his waist. "It'll get better, won't it? These things change over time, you said."

Edward's eyes dart immediately to Alice's, scanning her vision. While a hundred thousand possible futures all loom in fuzzy shades, only a handful of them include Bella.

With a start, he realizes that only a handful of them include _him_.

"Alice?"

She holds her hand up and shakes her head, her mind leaping to other places that leave no room for uncertain premonitions. "I'm not sure. I don't know." Even less focused now, she lets a few more hazy images of empty rooms zip through her sight, but her voice is uncompromising. "There's still too much undecided."

"By whom?"

Unbidden, red eyes pass through Alice's vision, and Edward recognizes ancient, papery skin.

"No," he breathes. _Yes._ He knows the answer is yes.

"Edward?" Bella draws his attention back. "What's wrong?" Her gaze flits to Alice. "What's happening?"

He wants to lie. He can't lie. "Alice thinks the Volturi might come back."

The silent, uncertain patience of the other vampires dissipates at the mention of that fearsome name, and everything suddenly is a buzz in Edward's head, too many voices and all of them distraught. This is nothing like the hum of human thoughts, all the voices so much clearer and louder, and everyone is speaking and thinking at the same time. Unable to cope, Edward drops his head to Bella's shoulder, his mouth twisting up into a grimace and his hand rising, _begging._

He needs everyone to stop.

Carlisle's voice is the one to finally listen. "Come," he interrupts, his quiet authority clear. "Let's move this conversation to the dining room." Golden eyes drift around the room, and while there is no menace to his creator's stare, Edward can see that everyone catches its warning as he says, "We must discuss this calmly."

Edward hears the apology in Carlisle's voice, but he also hears something laughing and wry. _I'm sorry, son,_ his thoughts say. And then, simply, _Welcome back to the family._

…

The faces around the table are portraits of barely contained opinion, the thoughts still cluttered and feverish, but at least the voices themselves are restrained. With carefully chosen words, Edward tells them what he knows, relating the details of Demetri's visit and of his threat to return. Self-conscious of the others' reactions to his talent, he speaks obliquely of the eyes he saw in the other vampire's mind.

"The eyes from my vision," Alice interrupts, her thought alighting with understanding.

"The same."

All eyes turn to Carlisle, expecting a response, but he sits there, lips pursed, his thumbs at his mouth. Then, to Edward's surprise, his eyes turn to Jasper.

"What do you think?"

Jasper pauses for a moment, remembering old legends of even older vampires, touching reflexively at a particularly deep scar across his wrist as he thinks of his life before the Cullens. "It's serious, of course." Addressing Alice, he asks, "How many?"

She shakes her head. "It's still unknown. Like I said," she hedges, biting her lip and glancing apologetically at Edward. "There are decisions that have yet to be made."

Carlisle's reply is a dim hum. "Then we need not act rashly. Though, knowing what I do of their leader, Aro, both of your talents would be incredibly appealing to him. I would not be surprised if he chose to visit you himself. Perhaps extend an invitation to join the guard."

In Carlisle's mind, Edward sees a picture of a grand room, elegantly adorned. On raised chairs in the middle of the space sit three ancient vampires.

"Yes," Edward hisses, pausing on the central figure. "Him. That's the one."

"Then it's as I feared." Carlisle addresses the table as a whole. "They will probably come, and we will have to make decisions about how to face them as things become clearer. Now that we are all back together, though, I believe that we should remain so." In what seems to be a reflexive gesture, he turns his eyes to Alice, who nods weakly, but Edward can see the many doubtful futures in her mind. Picking up on her uncertainty, Carlisle smiles kindly. "Adjusting our plans, of course, depending on what you see."

While this is no solution, an approach of quiet preparedness seems to assuage the surrounding minds, and Edward hears the whole tenor of the thoughts in the room relax.

Bella, though, still grips uncomfortably at his arm, her whole body tense.

It is to her that Carlisle looks next, his eyes struggling for focus as his vision fights with his mind in telling him that there is only air.

"Bella," he begins, and Edward feels a whole new resurgence of anxiety at the direction Carlisle's thoughts have taken. "Has Edward spoken to you of what comes next for you?"

"Carlisle," Edward warns, but Carlisle and Bella both shush him with extended arms.

"What comes next?" Bella asks uncertainly.

Carlisle stares blankly, unhearing. Of course he does not hear. "Edward?"

"No," Edward finally answers. "No, I haven't. Nothing beyond the two of us. Nothing beyond this house."

Carlisle's face softens sympathetically. "That is the most important thing, right now. But there are other concerns to be dealt with. Please forgive me, but your disappearance was … not unnoticed."

Edward winces at the slew of news reports and articles passing through Carlisle's mind, dropping his head into his hand when he sees his own name and face splashed across a page.

"Yes," Carlisle agrees. "The media attention is unfortunate, especially given that the Volturi have already taken an interest. But there is nothing to be done about that now. Reports are split regarding whether Edward was a fellow victim in the … incident. Or the perpetrator." Carlisle's thoughts try to contain images of color photographs of a bedspread soaked in blood, but they float to the surface anyway.

The taste of venom stings in Edward's mouth as again he finds himself biting painfully into his own fist. Only Bella's soft fingertips and softer voice can lift him from terrifying memories.

From the moment when he was sure he'd lost it all.

"What is it?" she asks quietly, gulping.

"Your blood," Edward chokes out. "The hotel room. It was … it was covered in it."

"Yes," Carlisle agrees, but his thoughts betray how fully he feels the guilt of his mental slip. "I'm sorry."

Edward shakes his head, withdrawing his last knuckle from his mouth and trying to relax into the soothing caresses of Bella's hands. "No," he mumbles, looking only at the table. "I live with what I did. The good and the bad."

Bella kisses his palm. "The good," she repeats, and he is almost floored by her generosity.

Carlisle smiles reassuringly. "You did what you needed to do, Edward. What any of us would have done for our mate."

Refocusing on practical matters, Carlisle once again does his best to address what he perceives as a silent, faceless chair. "The upside of your gift is that it will not be difficult to keep you out of sight until this all blows over. The risk to Edward, however, is much greater." His eyes grow soft as he looks upon his son. "You will need to stay out of the spotlight for quite some time. And that name is likely forfeit. For centuries, at least."

Edward grits his teeth and closes his eyes.

His name.

His real name.

Pained, he replies, "I understand."

He understands that there will be no more audiences. No more concerts. No more plays. Not for a long, long time.

He understands that the one act which brought him solace for decades is no longer available to him.

Miraculously, though, with Bella at his side, he is shocked to find that he scarcely cares.

Falling into her eyes, Edward is only brought back to the room and away from the clutching need to seek and provide solace with his mate by the sound of his sire clearing his throat. "I know this is difficult, but I must ask of Bella's family. Close friends. Anyone who would be looking for her."

Edward turns to Bella to see her face cast down.

"No," she murmurs. "No one. Not really. My parents, maybe, but I haven't spoken to them in … years." Regrets pass across her features, and Edward is the one grasping her hand now.

"She and her parents had fallen out of touch," he supplies after a moment's pause. "It won't be a problem."

Carlisle nods, satisfied. Aloud, he says, "Good," but silently, he cautions, _Don't let her gloss over this part, Edward. She'll need space to grieve._ Edward nods, and Carlisle continues, forcing a smile and staring into space. "You have a limited window to work with if there is anything you need to say to anyone. One of us would be happy to send a letter for you. After that, however, it will be best to let the papers and the police assume the worst."

Bella swallows hard, her hand tightening around Edward's. Slowly, understanding dawns. "'The worst' meaning that I'm dead."

Edward lets the silence hang. Speaking to Carlisle, he says simply, "We understand."

…

Edward and Bella ascend the stairs again in silence once the meeting informally adjourns. Taking his cues from her, Edward does not press and he does not demand contact, for all that he longs for it. Finally, the door clicks closed behind them, and she stands blankly just inside their room, her arms wrapped around her torso protectively, her eyes unfocused.

Slowly, she crosses the floor and climbs into the bed. Beneath the covers, she is a vision of stillness, staring fixedly at the wall, and it makes Edward ache for her to be so far away. For an infinite moment, he hovers just inside the door, wondering if he should be somewhere else.

If she wants him somewhere else.

Her voice, when it finally comes, is small and distant. But it is inviting.

"Lie with me."

He closes his eyes in gratitude before finally succumbing to his need for touch and to her request. Pulling back the covers, he curls himself around her body, reassuring himself in the steady sound of her breathing. It is so eerily familiar, and he remembers all the nights spent just like this, his body molded to hers and both of them so still. Breathing deeply of her warm, soft scent, he strokes her hair and hums, pretending for just a moment that this is any night.

That he is still capable of watching her sleep.

For hours, they lie together just like that, without a word exchanged between them. Carlisle's voice is loud in Edward's mind, cautioning him to give her time. Reminding him that she will need to grieve.

Finally, a thin sigh betrays Bella's imitation of sleep, and Edward lets his arms enfold her more fully, pulling her closer against his chest without bringing her flush to his hips. There is no hiding that he _wants_ her, but he wants more than just to love her with his body.

He wants to love all of her.

"Talk to me?" he finally entreats.

She stirs slightly, hugging a pillow to her chest, but her lips are still mute. Just when Edward is about to break down and beg, his lungs aching with the pressure of not speaking, she asks, "How did you do it?"

He strokes her hair and hesitates. "Do what?"

"Say goodbye."

_Let her grieve._

Swallowing hard, Edward tries to summon the feelings of loss that surrounded his change. For once, his perfect memory of that lonely, thirsty first year is welcome, and he does not fight it away. But it is all so foreign now.

"I missed my parents," he finally says. "Very much. My mother especially." Recollections of his childhood home wash over him, the sound of his mother's voice soft and reassuring in his ears. "She … They died just before I changed, though. The only goodbyes I had to say were in my mind. I never got to tell them anything."

The silence hangs between them, and Edward can sense Bella's conflict. "If I could have, I would have, Bella."

"I don't … I don't know what to say."

"Whatever you want to. That you love them or that you miss them. That you're okay."

After a long pause, Bella whispers, "I feel bad for missing them."

Edward's head lifts slightly from the pillow to try to see her face. "Bad?"

"I didn't take the time to be close to them when I could. What right do I have to now?"

He rubs her cheek and moves to entwine their hands. Hesitantly, he offers, "I received some good advice once. That we need to let ourselves grieve."

The sound that issues from her throat is a thinly veiled, choked sob. "How can I grieve when I'm this happy?" She finally turns to stare at him. "How can I be this sad about everything - about my family and my friends and this fucking … _gift_, or curse, or whatever it is - when I've never wanted anything more than I wanted you?"

"Oh, Bella," he murmurs, pulling her in and burying his face against her hair.

He wants to ask if she regrets it.

If she regrets him.

But nothing about this conversation is about him.

"You can't stop yourself from feeling," he whispers gently. "Not even if you think it might hurt me. You have to let yourself feel. Feel everything. Feel what you've lost," he urges shakily before grasping her more tightly. "And what you have."

She nods and lets him hold her. After a few minutes, she asks quietly, "Are you glad you changed me?"

Truthfully, he echoes, "I've never wanted anything more."

…

_I'm coming upstairs, Edward._

His name stands out amidst the sea of thoughts drifting up from the living room, drawing his attention from his relentless tracing of a series of moles across Bella's neck. Not having made love since the rest of Carlisle's coven returned, they are fully dressed, so Edward does not acknowledge Alice's approach until Bella reacts to the sound of footsteps on the stairs.

"I thought you might want these."

Edward sees an image of sheets of paper filling with words in Alice's thoughts, and he smiles to see a blank pad and several pens appear beneath the door.

Bella spies them at the same time, and Edward can feel her smile. "Thank her for me?"

"Thanks, Alice."

"You're welcome." Meaningfully, she clarifies, "Both of you."

Bella rises from the bed to retrieve the paper and pens, returning to sit at Edward's side.

"Do you want me to leave?"

Bella shakes her head vehemently, then bites her lip. "Only … don't look?"

Edward lifts himself to his elbow and ghosts his fingertips down his mate's cheek, leaning up to kiss her mouth. "Of course." He considers moving to the piano, but he no longer feels like playing alone. Instead, with a smile, he lies back down and closes his eyes, his body still.

It takes a moment before Bella seems to grasp his offer, but finally she curls up behind him, the tablet resting on the pillow beside his head.

They spend the rest of the night in just that manner, with Edward feigning sleep as Bella takes on his role, haunting the wakeful night. For hours and hours, she writes, and Edward never peeks. Behind closed eyes, he simply listens and loves, reassured by her presence and soothed by her subtle warmth.

When she reaches for him with her idle hand, gently caressing his shoulder, he wonders if his presence soothes her as well.

Finally, after countless drafts and a spate of words, Edward hears her neatly fold two sheets of paper and set them aside. The full length of her body presses against his back, and he breathes out a quiet sigh of relief.

"Feel better, love?"

"Yes. Much." She pauses before whispering, "Thank you."

He clasps her hand in his and holds them both against his heart. "Thank you."

_Thank you for staying. For loving me. For letting me love you._

_For making a life of my endless days. _

All these thoughts he holds in check, though, letting his kiss communicate what he scarcely has the words to say. The motions of their mouths and hands stay chaste tonight, speaking more of love than lust. Of companionship and adoration. By and by, even these slack off, and the two lovers are left together in their silence, simply holding one another and themselves.

Then, together, they lie there until it's light.


	11. Down Once More

Everything Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer. Everything Phantom of the Opera belongs to Andrew Lloyd Weber, Charles Hart and Gaston Leroux.

Thanks to antiaol, bmango and hunterhunting for their help, commas and kind words, and eternal gratitude to JAustenLover and Durameter for their generous donation to FGB:Eclipse.

* * *

**Chapter 11: Down Once More**

Bella Swan presses pen to paper, her teeth worrying her lip as she tries to decide how to ask. Glancing at the vampire beside her, at the scars that litter his flesh, she decides that it might be best to be direct.

In this new world of silence, she hasn't the patience to be anything else.

With a flourish, she writes simply, _How was it for you? When you first learned to use your gift?_

She regards the page for a moment before passing it across the table. Her handwriting, much like her body, has emerged from the change more perfect than it was before, but there are still signs of her inside of it, she thinks. She can still make herself out in the way the 'y' curls and in the shape of her 'w.'

The moment her hand lifts from the paper, she senses Jasper leaning forward to regard it. If he's still affected by the appearance of words from air, he does not betray that surprise. Stoically, he furrows his brow, considering for a moment before lifting his own pen. At first, he and the other Cullens used to try to speak aloud to her, but she could never keep up, never finding a way into the conversation. Now they speak through letters, like one might have done in an earlier time. They are not friends but correspondents.

There is a distance between her mind and everyone else's.

Everyone except her mate.

Giving Jasper the space to think and to write, Bella lifts her eyes to gaze across the room. She still can't help but smile as she sees Edward's mess of coppery curls, the lips and hands she knows so well. With Alice beside him, he plays and sings, trading melodies and laughter.

Bella has never seen him so _light_ before with anyone but her. She can't be bothered to be jealous, though. His happiness is too beautiful a thing to bother her.

The paper slides across the table once more.

_It was different for me. I learned in the midst of a war, and the pressure to not be killed was a powerful incentive._

Bella's chest hurts as she scrawls the words, _Believe me, I've incentive enough._

Jasper laughs as he reads it, adding, _True enough. But in the heat of battle, high on blood … It's more desperate still. Give it time. You need to feel your power out._

After a month of isolation, it seems _all_ she feels is the darkness. The cloak she can never take off.

She is just about to say as much when the notes streaming from across the room come to a thunderous halt, the string that seems to tie her mate to the very center of her heart tugging her roughly to her feet at even this slightest sign that something could be wrong. Dread fills her abdomen as she sees that something is wrong. Something is very wrong indeed.

Seemingly pulled by the same sort of string, Jasper crosses the room even faster than Bella does, his arms coming to surround Alice's frozen form with the sort of care that gives proof to the decades they have spent as lovers. Bella reaches them all scant seconds later, her hand reaching instinctively for Edward's even as they both hover protectively around their friends.

"What is it, baby?" Jasper asks, his hand on her face, his eyes staring into her glazed ones. "What do you see?"

"Our end," Edward says quietly. Bella's eyes move up to his to find them intently focused on Alice, and she can almost see the way the visions flicker across both their countenances. "They're coming."

Jasper looks up grimly, seemingly unsurprised. "The Volturi?"

"Yes." Edward squeezes Bella's hand but otherwise stays focused on Alice. "Seven of them. The one who came to me before. Dimitri. Aro." He spits the name out, the taste of it rancid on the air. "The others I do not know."

Alice's posture relaxes suddenly, her body falling into Jasper's in a rush and a series of harsh, unnecessary breaths. Her eyes flicker between the two vampires before her and to the space near Edward's hand, but Bella does not let the slight of it bother her. Not now.

_Our end._

"Is that it then?" Bella asks, despair thick inside her throat. She'd never expected to find love for a moment. To get a glimpse of an eternity of it, and then to be told that it is over … She does not know if she can bear it.

His face softening, Edward gathers his mate inside his arms, his lips pressing gently to her brow. "No, love. No. There's always hope." He looks to Alice meaningfully, and she shakes her head as if to clear it.

Alice holds up her hand, her eyes moving quickly, scanning worlds and futures as if they were as substantial as the room before her.

"Yes," Edward hisses, and Alice's head snaps up.

"But - "

"It's the only way," he insists.

Jasper interrupts. "What's going on?"

Edward holds Alice's eyes in silent conversation for an infinite moment before she nods. Slowly, he turns his gaze to Jasper, speaking quietly. "You all have to go. They must find me alone."

The despair slides downward, settling, acidic and black in the pit of Bella's stomach. "Never," she swears, clutching at Edward's shoulders. "You can't. I won't - "

He cuts her off with a kiss and a sad, small smile. "I said they'd _find_ me alone. Not that I would be."

"It's risky," Alice insists.

"It's riskier to stay. You see that. With their gifts, they'd incapacitate you all. There would be no discussion. Only violence."

Jasper cuts in. "We've gifts of our own."

"But subtle ones," Edward says. "They bring only their warriors. They bring blindness and pain. They bring division that would tear us apart."

Standing taller, Jasper narrows his eyes. "You're our family now."

"And we always will be," Edward swears. "But they must find me alone."

Grasping Edward's hand, Alice turns up wary, mournful eyes. "I can't see the end of it. There are many paths, but so many end in blackness."

Edward's mouth is firm - as firm as his resolve as he gathers Bella against him, already putting distance between their bodies and the others'. With regret and certainty, he adds what Alice will not. "But if you stay, they end in ash."

…

"I don't like it, Edward." Carlisle stands gruffly in the center of the living room, his arms crossed and his brow furrowed.

The way that Bella and Edward sigh as one would be comical, were everything not so tense. She touches his hand and then retreats to sit on the arm of the couch. All week long, they have been going back and forth like this with one person after another trying to convince Edward to abandon his plan. By circumstance, Bella is apart from the discussions. She only gets to have her say in those too-brief moments when she and Edward are alone and she feels free to voice all her doubts and her concerns.

There is something in his hands and in his voice, she thinks as she watches him. He's hiding something from her. But all she can do is trust.

Ignoring his son's dismissive gesture, Carlisle starts again. "Aro and I are old friends. Surely if I could talk to him. Reason with him."

"Friendship is nothing to him," Edward insists. "He comes here for me, and if you're here…" His eyes dart to Alice uneasily, but she shivers and looks away.

"Do we even know what he wants of you?"

"He…" Edward hesitates, the tiniest flinch giving his omission away. "I'm the one they want," he says with finality. "And if you attempt to interfere, he'll find reasons to implicate you as well. For harboring me. For getting in his way."

Carlisle turns to Alice in resignation. "And there's no other way?"

Her hands twist in her lap. "If there is, I haven't seen it."

And that's when Bella is certain. She knows that Alice is hiding something, too.

Esme sweeps into the room, suitcase in hand, and somehow her presence seems to settle everything. Placing the bag at Carlisle's feet, she comes to stand before Edward and takes his hands in hers. "You must be careful," she says quietly, her voice full of emotion. "We've just gotten you back, and…"

Edward takes her into his arms and closes his eyes as she trails off. "I know," he says, and then, with some pain, "I love you, too."

One by one, the Cullens step forward to embrace their long-lost son, but no one finds the will to speak the words that hover on the air. While Bella is surprised when Alice closes her eyes and makes her way across the room to hug her, too, she is shocked when the others follow suit, taking a leap of faith to close their arms around the daughter and sister they cannot see.

They are out the door before Edward closes his arms around her, kissing her temple with an intensity she cannot name before turning to watch their retreating forms through the window.

It is only then that he whispers, "Goodbye."

…

Bella spends the remaining hours before sunset wrapped around her lover, giving and taking with a desperation that makes her hands clutch and grasp, her mouth insistent against his skin and her body shaking as it reaches its peak again and again. Beneath him, she whispers of love and hope, and above him, she stares, soaking in the details of the man she was made to love, still unwilling to accept that she's out of time.

As he climaxes silently, pouring himself into her once more, she collapses forward, kissing every inch of his face before hiding hers.

"You know more," she says, even as she's holding him, his body still inside hers. It is not a question. It's not even an accusation.

He pulls her head from his shoulder and cups it in both his hands. He has no response. Only, "I love you."

"Just tell me… Is there any chance? Any…"

"I love you."

Without the ability to cry, she simply covers his mouth with hers, tasting his tongue and the memory of tears as she breathes, "I love you, too."

…

At twilight, Bella stands beside her mate before the house that has become a home to her, staring out across a dimming landscape of forest and field. They kiss, embracing with a finality that makes her tremble, the look of adoration on her lover's face the only thing that keeps her steady.

"If I thought for a moment that you would listen, I would tell you to go," he says, stroking her cheek.

"I would never agree."

"I know." Smiling sadly, he entreats, "Just … Just promise me one thing, though. Please."

"Anything."

"If anything happens," he says, his face already turning away from hers. "If anything happens to me… promise me you'll run."

"No," she breathes, but then there are no more words.

Because then she sees them.

They arrive in state, seven figures draped in black and grey, all flowing robes and pale skin and crimson eyes. Spanning the width of the road, they seem to float, their progress more swift than any human's could possibly be, and Bella can tell that there will be no pretense. They are vampire royalty, dangerous and unrepentant in their immortality.

She takes them in with the phantom pulse of her dead heart racing in her ears, remembering all that she's been told. She recognizes Aro by his long, dark hair and the aura of command that surrounds him, and she cannot help but stare at the hands that hold the power of omniscience in their grasp. She remembers how many times Carlisle warned them not to let him touch them.

Beside him is a shadow of a girl that must be his bodyguard, her slightness thrown into more dramatic relief by the hulking monster of a man who stands behind her. There is a blonde girl whose countenance speaks the very word _pain_ and a boy who shares her face but not her intensity. There is another woman, slight and nondescript but somehow central. And then there is the other. The one she's seen before.

And none of them seem to see her.

Behind his body, Edward squeezes her hand and then steps away, refusing to touch her or acknowledge her. It pains her, but she has no choice but to trust him. From his words, though, she wonders if she should.

It strikes her for the first time that, while their love is equal in its overwhelming intensity, their ideas of an acceptable conclusion might not be even remotely the same.

In a blur of black and white and crimson, the six figures of the Volturi close the last few hundred yards in seconds, their progress a flash even to Bella's immortal eyes. Suddenly, they are there, a half dozen feet before them, cloaks rustling and, beneath genteel smiles, their teeth are bared.

It is at that thin show of menace that Bella feels a stirring in her own cloak. She feels the darkness gather.

She sees the edges of it turn as red as blood.

"Well, well. Edward Masen."

"Aro."

Bella watches with a growing fury as Aro steps forward, his hand extended as if in greeting. Edward blinks at it and lifts his head high, his arms still crossed and his hands in fists. She register's Aro's surprise and then his dark amusement as he claps and laughs.

"Wonderful. I do enjoy a challenge. Clearly Dmitri was right about you."

"Then you know you have no secrets. You had might as well get on with it. I know what you're here to do."

"Do you now? Fascinating. I've never met another mind reader. So much we could learn from each other. If only…" Aro's hand rises once more in invitation.

Again, Edward ignores it.

A glimmer of brighter red flashes in Aro's irises, and Bella sees the first signs of irritation on his face. "As you would have it. You know then that Dmitri has brought me a disturbing report, indeed. Decades spent in the spotlight when the only rule of our kind is to stay in the shadows. Interacting with those who should be your prey. And a girl. A _human_ girl."

The way Edward flinches, Bella can sense the tenor of Aro's thoughts, the threat and the mental violence. She can feel the space around her ripple with her anger.

She can see Jasper's words, black against an ivory page.

_But in the heat of battle, high on blood … It's more desperate still._

"How would you answer these charges?"

"Does it matter?"

Aro laughs darkly. "Your intention does." His fingers twitch as he intones, "If I only knew what you were thinking. An innocent mistake could perhaps be forgiven." He pauses and smiles, a stray reflection making his teeth flash white. "Given time enough, we could teach you how to live in our society. A few centuries in Volterra would do you good. Think of all you could learn…"

"Those are my choices, then. Join you or be destroyed?"

For just one moment, one too-short instant in time, Edward glances to the side, and in his eyes, Bella sees everything. His love and his regret. His promise to keep her safe.

His farewell.

"No," she breathes, reaching out, but he is already stepping away. "No."

Edward lifts a hand, and Bella hears the word, "Pain," her eyes darting until they meet scarlet ones, focused intently on her mate. Her mate who is crumpling. With a broken cry, Edward falls to his knees, his head buried in his hands, and all the scarlet eyes in the world are no match to the way Bella's world is painted in crimson.

She feels the gathering darkness around her body like a cloak, but she can sense the edges of it now. She can taste the way it shifts when she moves her hands and how it ripples when she breathes.

She can feel her hands.

She can taste how stone would crack beneath them.

Edward's eyes again meet hers as he is felled, collapsing to the ground, and yet still all of the concern on his face is for her. "No," he mouths through his scream. Bella sees the way he looks at her hands, one already thrown back in preparation to attack, and the venom in her mouth is unchecked, murderous and flowing.

Aro claps. "Jane, darling, what a wonderful show, but was that really necessary?"

"He raised his hand toward you. How was I to know if he'd attack?"

Edward's convulsions cease in the same instant that the girl relaxes, and Bella can breathe again as he rises to his feet. The memory of pain is still etched on his features, but his eyes are clear.

As he places his hands in his pockets, so are his intentions.

"Unshared thoughts are guilty ones," Aro warns.

"Not necessarily." Edward rocks back on his heels, smiling sadly. "But there are some things I can't - some things I won't betray."

Bella understands in that moment that he means her.

He would destroy himself before he would reveal her.

Always, 'our end' was his end.

"Such a waste," Aro says, lamenting. "Felix?"

The largest, most fearsome vampire steps forward with a grin and a crouch, a raising of a hand that looks more like a claw and the snapping of his jaw.

"No." She and Edward hear her gasp, but no one else does.

Aro hesitates anyway, lifting an eyebrow and eliciting a low growl from Edward's throat. "Though there is still the matter of the girl. Dmitri, you remember her scent?"

"Of course, Master."

This time it is Edward's turn to laugh. "You'll never find her."

No, Bella thought. They never would.

In that instant, Bella's fury boils over, Edward's anger over the threat to his mate becoming her own. It mixes with all the other resentments that have built in the last few months. The death and the pain. The frustration and the loss and isolation, and everything goes red and black as Bella lets the darkness run through her, less a shadow that surrounds her so much as a part of her now. In the back of her mind, she can hear Alice, too.

_There are many paths, but so many end in blackness. _

There was more than one way to die.

There is more than one kind of blackness.

And one of them now flexes, the deep shadow of it trembling with the sudden snapping of her control.

Feeling the strength of her power in her hands, Bella steps forward and touches her mate. His dismay at her proximity to Felix is a tremor in his stony skin, his scream of protest a barely restrained thing. With all the fury surging through her crystal veins, she can only just summon the subtlety required to stroke his shoulder reassuringly.

"Trust me," she breathes.

Then for one brief moment, Bella pulls the darkness inside of her, gathering every fiber of it into her silent heart, and there she holds it.

And for the first time in months - for the first time in her entire existence, really - she feels _everyone's_ eyes on hers.

As their expressions turn from shock to fear and then to action, Bella hisses, "You'll never find him either." Her eyes dart amongst Aro's and Dmitri's and Jane's. She sees their fear, and she basks in it, her own teeth bared to drive her meaning home. "But for all your eternities, you'll always wonder where we are."

In the rush of breath that escapes her lungs, the blackness pushes back out into the air, embracing not only her form but Edward's as well. It encompasses them.

And she watches crimson eyes turn murderous as the both of them fade away.

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* * *

**A/N:** Just one more chapter and a short epi. They'll both be up within a week.


	12. All I Ask of You

Everything Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer. Everything Phantom of the Opera belongs to Andrew Lloyd Weber, Charles Hart and Gaston Leroux.

Thanks to antiaol, bmango and hunterhunting for their help, commas and kind words, and eternal gratitude to JAustenLover and Durameter for their generous donation to FGB:Eclipse.

* * *

**Chapter 12: All I Ask of You**

Had Edward Masen not seen it in their minds, he would never have believed it. He still doesn't. Not completely.

Still, there he stands, his mate's hand gripped within his own, her body a line of tension and barely contained ferocity. And no one sees either of them.

A few seconds pass in shocking mental silence, but then the chorus of thoughts erupts into a chaos so thick that Edward feels physical pain as he tries to sort them all out.

_Gone … Just a moment ago … They must be here … Impossible …_

And then there are more thoughts.

_Pain._

He braces for the onslaught, only it never comes, the crippling agony he had felt before.

_Assassins, _Aro thinks, and Edward's eyes snap to his_. They're assassins. We've been tricked._

Words are spoken aloud, too. "Find them," and, "Move, you fools," and all the voices are laced with terror.

_Assassins._

_I can't find them._

Edward looks up to find Dmitri staring blankly at his patch of air, and it is in that moment that he allows himself at last to smile.

_I can't _find_ them._

At Aro's increasingly panicked urging, the party begins to move, Felix stepping forward and Jane continuing her mental assault, lashing out wildly now. There is something else in the air, too, a thin cloud that presses out from the boy beside her, and Edward hears his thoughts of desperation and forced calm.

"We need to move." To Edward's surprise and relief, his words go unnoticed by all but Bella. "Now."

Still staring at the threat before them, Bella remains still except to crouch down lower, coiled in preparation to attack. Edward has to tug hard at her arm, yanking her to the side when he hears Felix's intention to charge. He feels the movement of air as the vampire lunges at what he cannot see.

He senses in Felix's mind when he grasps the hem of Bella's shirt. "Gotcha," Felix shouts triumphantly.

Aro's attention is immediately on the empty space where Felix's arm is reaching, and as Bella tears herself free, Edward watches a scrap of fabric appear in the vampire's hand.

"Find them!" There is a sharp increase in the pitch of Aro's voice, his thoughts spiraling now, frantic. A hundred possible deaths flit through the ancient monarch's mind - attacks he cannot see, carried out inside the walls of his very own home.

Felix tumbles forward, striking out blindly but with purpose now, and the mist drifts closer.

"Come on," Edward insists. There is a phantom of a strategy appearing, a network of moving limbs that Aro would have enfold around the space where he suspects they still must stand. "You promised me you'd run."

Bella's eyes, half-crimson now and half-gold, focus at last on his, widening with understanding, and she nods. Hand in hand, they begin to move, backing away slowly at first to keep their bodies just beyond the reach of their pursuers. Edward catches a stray thought, Dimitri's eyes pausing on the way a blade of grass bends as if pinned beneath an invisible weight.

"Jump," Edward breathes, quickening their pace. As one, they take two more long strides before leaping, shifting directions madly. "Run."

They do. For miles and miles, they run, the forests and fields all blurs beneath their speed. They leave no trace but for the faintest hints of imprints in the dirt.

And they leave nothing behind them but chaos, anger and fear.

…

The first rays of dawn are already creeping over the horizon before they slow. Across three states, they have fled, pausing only to send Alice a message telling her what she already knows - that the house is not safe, and that the Volturi are furious. That they may still lie in wait.

"Did we lose them?" Bella breathes, the feeling of her palm almost embedded in his skin by now as she squeezes it.

He laughs tightly, but his defenses still don't come down. "About three hundred miles ago."

Her face is utterly blank as she comes to a sudden halt, jerking him backward with the force of her grip. For a moment, he fears for himself and for his heart, but then she is attacking him in the very best possible way, arms and legs wrapping around his torso, her lips on every inch of his face as her fingers thread through his hair.

"Don't you ever," she begins before sputtering and trailing off, her words dying beneath the intensity of what they've just survived. He feels robbed of thought as well as he meets her kiss just as powerfully. Relief and desire mix without beginning or end, but he doesn't need to read her mind to sense the anger there, too. "I thought … You were going to… I can't lose you. I can never lose you."

"I'm sorry," he breathes. "I'm so sorry." He wants to give in to the comfort and passion of her kiss and to finally let go of all the worries that have gripped him, but he sees the way her skin is already glowing, the sky erupting in pink and peach and dazzling light. Acquiescing to instincts he learned over a dozen lifetimes, he seeks out the shadows and reaches for her hand. "Come on," he says, urging them on into the town.

There, they sneak into a quiet hotel with an all-but-empty parking lot. After stealing the key from beneath a clerk's nose, they let themselves into a room not unlike the ones they've inhabited so many times before. The very shade of the bedspread and the insipid art on the walls make him wince with memories of death and the taste of blood. He remembers, too, though, that it was within a room like this that he found life - both her eternal one and his own.

There is no keyboard, and no suitcases sit against the wall. No one needs to sleep. And yet, this is a space they know. He leads her to the bed and props himself up against a pile of pillows before drawing her body down beside his, holding her close.

"Will you tell me everything?"

"Of course." There are few things in his new life that he has ever wanted more.

The story comes pouring out of him in a low rush. He speaks with a tremor in his voice of Alice's vision, the fire and ash that first she'd seen. But then she'd pictured the two of them standing together in front of the house alone.

She'd seen everything in their futures going black.

Dark as they might be, ash and death had never before looked black.

"I wanted to tell you," he says gruffly, his eyes stinging with venom that is too raw to flow. "But the instant I decided to, everything changed. You needed to not know what you could do."

Bella lifts her head from his chest and stares into his eyes. "She said it was risky."

"It was. So little is certain, and it could have gone a lot of different ways."

"They could have killed you. Or taken you."

He brushes his hand across her cheek and pulls her up, compelled to kiss the fullness of her lips. "It was the only way," he offers quietly, but he knows it's not enough.

He knows what it is to think you've lost. It's a pain he would never wish on her.

"I'm sorry." Over and over, he breathes his apology.

He shudders beneath the perceived warmth of her mouth moving against his, devouring his words and filling him with breath. Eventually, he gives up the will to speak and succumbs to the kisses he has waited all night for, pouring out the uncertainty and the fear. His hands that long to touch and love find skin, stealing beneath the torn fabric of her shirt to stroke reverently.

"We still get our forever?" Bella asks quietly, her fingertips brushing his sides as her hips lift to settle astride his, her eyes finally clear and her hands no longer trembling.

"Yes," he says, unable to control his smile. The long years that had always spread out before him are infinite now, and he couldn't be happier.

But then she frowns. "You know they'll always be looking for us."

"I know." Brushing her hair back from her eyes, he presses his lips softly to hers. "Those with the most to lose are the most afraid to lose it." He can't help grinning. "I've never seen anyone so terrified."

"Terrified?" she asks, smirking. "Of little old me?"

He flips her over easily, pinning her arms above her head and dragging his nose across her throat. "Of you."

Wriggling her wrists free from his grip, Bella pulls at his jaw until he has to look at her. When he does, he sees the doubt all over her face, her eyes searching his.

"We'll be hiding from them forever," she warns. When he does not respond except to nod, she softens her expression, the vulnerability clear on his face. "You're really okay with that?" Lowering her voice further, she puts the pain to her question. "After what I did … You'll be stuck with only me."

Still, he stares at her, frozen, until she waves her hand through the air to indicate the blackness that only she can see. "Oh, Bella," he whispers, covering her lips with his. "You'll always be enough. I spent a century alone with just myself. I never dreamed… To find _you…_" Kissing her deeply, he breathes only enough to repeat it. "You will always, always be enough."

"But your family…"

"_Our_ family will write us. And maybe someday…" Speaking guardedly, he admits, "Maybe someday we'll see them again."

He watches Bella's eyes widen. "But will they see us?"

Smiling, he kisses the very corner of her mouth, remembering the handful of futures in which they were able to reappear. "Hard to say. But even if they don't, it'll be okay."

"You're sure?"

"I see you. And you see me," he breathes. Sliding down her body to touch his tongue to the skin beneath her shirt, he tells her, "I see you."

And he longs to see more. After so much worry and stress, he feels the need to lose himself inside of her - to make love and to linger instead of groping frantically while fearing an entirely different kind of loss. Sweeping the fabric up her body, he places soft kisses all along her stomach and ribs. He takes some care to not destroy her garments, knowing that they have not brought anything with which to replace them, but he cannot help worrying the place where her shirt shows the evidence of how close they came to disaster. The torn edge is raw, much like his nerves. Pulling the fabric from her body, he holds it for a moment, his hand gripping just where Felix's had, but he does not speak of his relief. It is too big for words.

She seems to understand, taking the shirt from him gently and pulling him back down, cradling his chest against her own. He lets loose a quiet groan as Bella's arms encircle him, her kiss soft and wet and her fingertips so gentle as they sweep along his spine. They undress each other slowly, their lips and hands never straying from each other's skin.

Only, when finally he lies naked above her, he remembers the last time her took her on a rented bed like this. He remembers the same sort of panic in his hands, the same images of crimson eyes and the sounds of threats.

He remembers blood.

In one swift motion, he switches their positions, crawling up the bed to sit with his back to the headboard, her thighs atop his and his mouth nearly level with her breasts. Sucking each peak between his lips in turn, he stares up at her, imploring. With a single nod and a short gasp, Bella rises up onto her knees before sinking down over him, bringing him home.

For hours, they make love. As she rocks over him, sliding her mouth across his and nibbling gently on his tongue, he guides her to move faster and slower. Harder and softer. The thin stream of light from the gap in the curtains moves across the bed, and still they love, giving themselves over to pleasure instead of fear. Each time it builds and crests, they simply start anew, until finally, when night is set to bloom again, he lays her body down, his front to her back as he climbs on top of her, gliding inside with a low groan. With her body pinned beneath his, his thighs pushing hers open and her hands clasped tightly in his own above her head, he moves within her.

"I see you," he breathes, the love he feels too intense to be contained. "And I choose you. Every day. Every time. I choose to be with you."

Her climax is a low, fluttering thing. Panting and craning her neck until her eyes connect with his, she groans out just his name.

And then he loses himself inside of her once more.

…

Late that night, they sneak into a local theatre. Turning all the house lights on, they bask beneath the glow, remembering.

For Edward, the scent of stage make-up and the heat of the lamps is bittersweet. Coupled with the sea of empty seats, it would be painful, but for one thing.

"Love," he says as he pulls at Bella's hand. She laughs, the most beautiful sound in the world, as she follows him over to the grand piano in the center of the hardwood floor. "Play with me."

His hands pick out the quiet strains of an old melody, and hers soon follow suit. Any bitterness still on the air succumbs to the sweetness of their music, and he smiles.

There is no audience, but nor is there anything he needs to atone for now.

Tonight and all nights, he plays for Bella alone.

And it is so much more than enough.

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* * *

**A/N:** Very short epi on Thursday. Hopefully it will resolve any lingering questions.

Thank you for sticking with these two as they find their way.


	13. Postlude

Everything Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer. Everything Phantom of the Opera belongs to Andrew Lloyd Weber, Charles Hart and Gaston Leroux.

Thanks to antiaol, bmango and hunterhunting for their help, commas and kind words, and eternal gratitude to JAustenLover and Durameter for their generous donation to FGB:Eclipse.

* * *

**Chapter 13: Postlude**

The first century of Bella Masen's new life is a whirlwind of love and learning. Of optimism and hope.

Three days after their escape, she and her mate arise from their bed for long enough to look at each other and to peer out the window at a world they had each spent so much time in hiding from.

Edward turns to her, grinning and kissing the side of her hair, marveling at the beauty of her skin there in the light. "The world can't see us," he whispers.

She is taken aback by the smile on his face.

Pressing his lips to hers, he says, "So let's go see the world."

For years, they do just that. They hunt lions in Malawi and bypass lines at the Louvre. Bella sees all the things she'd always longed for in her quiet, little life, and Edward sees the sun.

For the first time in a century, he sees the sun.

After a few decades, they receive a letter from Alice that changes all their plans. Abandoning the warmth of Mumbai for the frozen shadow of Mount Denali, they make their way across the globe and into a cozy living room beside a low-burning fire, surrounded by vampires with golden eyes.

In handwriting she now recognizes as her own, Bella explains everything from the feeling of invisibility to the cloak of blackness she maintains around both herself and her mate. The others all watch the words appear, and they all nod, but only one of them chooses to speak.

"My name is Eleazar, and I think that I can help."

It still takes years, but Bella studies relentlessly, learning her power with neither the pressure of her own expectations nor the haze of fury and fear. She learns that there is a shade of light between brightness and blackness, and she spends ages immersed in the subtleties of grey.

"I get glimmers," Eleazar tells her after a particularly exhausting afternoon of trying to reveal only as much as she wishes others to see. "Hints."

He pauses before he adds, "But there's one who sees more."

That night, she collapses onto her and Edward's bed, staring at him as she splays her hand across his cheek. "Why do you think it is?" she muses. "That you can see me but you've never been able to hear my mind?"

"I don't know," he answers carefully. "Because I've never taken my eyes off of you? Because I didn't need to hear you to _know_ you?"

Brushing her fingers through his hair, she agrees, "You do know me."

For days, she thinks about what that means. She ponders what makes him different from everyone else, and she remembers those last few moments before his teeth met her flesh and the blackness closed in.

She remembers a moment of absolute trust.

Then, one cold, sunny morning, she stands before Eleazar, focusing on everything that he has done. She chooses to trust.

And she feels a single ray of light pierce through the darkness. She sees his smile. And when she speaks his name, he hears her voice.

The rest of the Cullens arrive a few hours later. It's not easy, but Bella finds a way to part the curtains again and again, keeping the rest of the world behind them while allowing her family to peer within. When Alice embraces her this time, it is without a single reservation, as both her eyes and arms acknowledge the solidity of the girl before them.

And a few days later, Carlisle looks both her and Edward in the eyes when he pronounces them vampire and wife.

…

For his part, the second century of Edward Masen's immortality is nothing like the first.

There are years during which he speaks to no one but his mate, and there are years when they scarcely leave their bed. There is sunlight and music and concerts in huge halls that they observe from front row seats, lying unseen in the aisles.

Eventually, there are family and friends.

The blood he drinks is free of pain and guilt, and it is enough to ease his thirst.

He makes music. Sometimes people hear it, and sometimes they do not.

He lives. Sometimes people see it, and sometimes they do not.

He loves. Above all else, he loves.

And there is nothing more in the world that he could want.

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It's been a joy. Thank you.


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